Sunday, May 15, 2011

Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits

Well I'm back - the break from posting went on a little longer as Blogger was down when I'd penciled in my to do list and then it was the weekend for me and I managed an (almost) computer free one :)

I was going to post about something different, but I was listening to a compilation album in the car over the weekend and realized how many of the songs I'd had on vinyl.   I even had a great discussion with my 9 year old about music - she loves David Bowie's Let's Dance album and my hubby's got her obsessed with Yazoo so we were discussing 80s music along with a few songs from the here and now that she enjoys and it struck me that I should do a series of posts on 'Vinyls from the Past' showcasing different albums that I have owned during the 80s and ones that I wished I'd owned.

Anyways all of this waffling is my way of saying we're talking about different 80s albums and today's album is Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms.

Now this album was actually the best selling album of the 80s in the UK and it's no surprise to me as I think it was fantastic.   It was actually Dire Strait's fifth album, but it's been their best selling and actually became the first album to sell one million copies in the cd format - yes vinyl was about to start it's decline, but it hadn't happened yet.

Brothers in Arms featured classics such as Money for Nothing and Walk of Life.  In fact if you take Brothers in Arms and Sultans of Swing then I don't think you need worry about a best of album for Dire Straits, but I'm sure someone will want to disagree with that statement and you're welcome to leave your comments below.

I must confess I never owned Brothers in Arms on vinyl as my dad owned it......this was nearly enough reason for me to 'go off' Dire Straits completely, but their music was good enough to bridge the generation gap and besides dad had some pretty cool albums like Bat out of Hell by Meatloaf and Eliminator by ZZ Top so it wasn't all bad!

What I find amazing is that Dire Strait's Brothers in Arms album actually outsold Michael Jackson's Thriller during the 80s in the UK - I would never have guessed that.   I think the reason is what I mentioned above - Dire Straits managed to bridge the generation gap and people who had been teens in the 60s loved the sound  as much as the teens of the 80s.

So, did you own Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms album?   Let me know below.

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