Dire Straits - Love Over Gold (Retrospectator)
20th September 1982
Vertigo / Warner Bros
Breaking free of the pitfalls plaguing the rest of their discography, Dire Straits were able to pull through with a record brimming with ideas, social commentary meeting their trademark glorious guitar parts, expanding the band's sound and scope in a short lived career high.
I promised more and finally, in 2021, I'm delivering, the new schedule should be beginning to materialise and breathing new life into this forgotten series is one of the ways that I'll be changing things up this year on my blog. For those of you who didn't read the two previous posts in this series, and for those who want to know how I'll manage it going forward, this is my way of taking a look back at older albums for once, any album more than fifteen years old is eligible. For good or for ill, they also need to stand out for me to consider taking a look, particularly given this is meant to be a monthly series, and for as many older albums as I love and enjoy (not to mention the ones I don't) there are significantly less albums that I think warrant this kind of review, but reviews are what I do, and this should be fun SO - without further a-do, I believe it's time to take a look at Love Over Gold, by Dire Straights.
My history with Dire Straits goes back a good few years, a friend of mine excitedly recommending them, only for me to cruelly critique pretty much everything about their most popular album, 1985's Brothers In Arms, a record I felt (and still feel) lacks any of the excitement or sonic progressions of the electronic-driven side of the eighties, but a record I also feel is lacking in a lot of the careening charm and euphoria of those rock bands that managed to survive and thrive in an electronic world. In fact the album lacks substance and ambition, full to the brim with the false depth of pop rock balladry, the rare peppier tracks selling out in the opposite direction and seemingly failing to understand any of the appeal this band managed to have before, and yet I say this with a heavy heart as the commercial direction enabled them to top the charts in the US, and pretty much the rest of the Western World, even the criminally simplistic shallowness of the country pop "Walk Of Life" and the cheesiest saxophone solo in "Your Latest Trick" somehow not being enough to convince people that Dire Straits... they're not a good band.
I say all this because I think it's important to acknowledge the almost exclusively negative direction that I was approaching Love Over Gold from, the album directly preceding Brothers In Arms and their forth overall, previous records flying by and leaving little impact on me, certain their discography would be one to pass me by without any impact, certain I wouldn't end up putting one of their albums in a series like this. And yet, here we are. Love Over Gold, an album that came seemingly out of nowhere, a continuation of the slowly lengthening songs, the increasingly mellow and atmospheric arrangements, the increasingly difficult to tolerate observations of Mark Knopfler and his obnoxious, frustrating vocals.
Somehow, that's not what this album is at all; somehow, this winds up being the band's most ambitious, purposeful and detailed album; somehow, this doesn't just suck. I think a whole lot of that comes down to the structure. This album has just five tracks, the lowest of any Dire Straits album and, whilst the overall runtime isn't all that different from those that came before, it is gratifyingly digestible at forty minutes, each track setting up a distinct identity, not unique within or outside of the band's discography but all identifiably by Dire Straits, and all with their own stories to tell, sounds to play with. Not only this, but Mark's vocals morph and adapt to meet the requirements of each track, and I cannot express how happy I am that being the case.
The album opens up with "Telegraph Road", a fourteen minute, slow building epic that manages to justify a runtime almost twice as long as any track on Brothers In Arms, and yet is more engaging, focused and altogether well written, whether you're talking about the grandiose piano parts or the defiant yet not overbearing guitar, seeming to embody the perseverance of a man who's been led on and let down by the promise of the American Dream, an experience that's detailed and intimate yet vast and dramatic enough to capture the shared frustration of those who can relate. There's a reason this is considered their best song, and it deserves it, whether you're measuring by scope or execution, "Telegraph Road" is the boldest move they've made as a band and, despite not tearing down any boundaries of its time, it does succeeds in what it sets out to do, and that's honestly not something I can say for any of their songs I had heard before this one.
Moving on, we come across far and away the band's most peculiar song, "Private Investigations", a song that perplexingly reached #2 on the UK charts... and I couldn't be happier. On the move, at a passing listen, this song could so easily go in one ear and out the other, a slower and less ambitious track with far less swell, and gravitas, and yet a track that I find myself enjoying to the same extent, primarily due to its mastery in atmosphere. Building from just a low synth like the last track but replacing the full sound and wildness with instrumentation that embodies the bare minimum of what is necessary, because that's all it needs to tell its story. A lonely private detective, depressed by the life they lead and the people they deal with. Moreover, the outro to this thing is phenomenal, Knopfler's guitar and featured guest Mike Mainieri's marimba interplaying with one another in a beautiful, suspenseful showcase of the best both can offer.
Now we change pace yet again with "Industrial Disease", the obvious choice of a single and an obvious step towards the commercialism of "Money for Nothing", even dealing with similar themes (although telling a very different story about a different side of the economy) though this time around Knopfler's vocals are mocking in the right moments, with other moments of punk influenced speak-singing that works incredibly well, the wit of this song shining brighter than the cheap sounding synthesizers of the post-chorus that unfortunately detract from what could have been three-for-three in this album's streak of near perfect songs, but alas the band decided on a style of synth that sounds frustratingly outdated, and I can't help feeling that something a little darker would have worked far better, although I wouldn't be surprised if Dire Straits had never heard of darkwave. Regardless, the thunderous claps are a nice touch.
I refuse to talk about the title track "Love Over Gold". Okay fine. It's an extremely well produced, executed-to-perfection pop ballad that may sound nice, but holds absolutely no substance, no defining quality, no interesting themes or lyrics, and absolutely no edge, the cringe to come rearing its well-polished, commercially-viable head, and leaving me with a sick taste in my mouth and disappointment radiating off of me, because there was just no good reason for them to do this, no reason to interrupt such a strong album for the sake of this and yes, I am aware that as far as bland eighties pop ballads go this is up there with the more tolerable ones, but that doesn't justify its place here.
I think "It Never Rains" is the track where Dire Straits wear their influences on their sleeves, particularly that of Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, instrumentally and lyrically respectively, but what matters more is how well it's executed, and I am happy to report that I am, once more, a happy customer, and this is compelling first and foremost due to the bitterness Knopfler displays, his songwriting here and throughout this record making me question his inadequacies across the rest of the band's discography, and yeah I'm going to call it - this right here is the band's most underrated gem, their unsung hero, although I will say it deserves its third place spot behind "Telegraph Road" and "Private Investigations", the scope, intricacies and storytelling of those tracks going beyond that of "It Never Rains", but not necessarily above it.
Lacking in the nonsense of many of their previous songs, in the unjustified indulgence of their later songs and of the ultraclean commercial direction they would soon pursue, Love Over Gold has well and truly won me over as the glorious English exception it is, the only Dire Straits album I really care for, and an open invitation for me to bookmark Knopfler - who knows, perhaps I'll take a look at his solo career some day. For now though, if there's one thing that I've been waiting to say for years, that my poor friend who set me down this path all those years ago has been waiting for me to say, it's this: I like this Dire Straits album. It isn't unique, it isn't groundbreaking and it's far from flawless, but it's fun, it's well put together and it's insightful, and honestly, that's good enough.
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7.0
/10
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BEST TRACKS
Telegraph Road; Private Investigations; It Never Rains
WOST TRACKS
Love Over Gold
BREAKDOWN
Ambition: 5
Atmosphere: 8
Catchiness/Enjoyability: 6
Content/Ideas: 7
Emotion/Engaging: 7
Execution: 7
Production: 9
Structure: 6
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Lyrics: 7
Vocals/Flows: 8
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Total: 70
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