Dire Straits - Making Movies

Making Movies is Dire Straits's third album and includes several epic numbers that remain among Mark Knopfler's finest work. "Tunnel of Love, " "Romeo And Juliet" (covered by the Indigo Girls), and "Solid Rock" all work with the same distinctive galloping rhythm underneath Knopfler's country-blues staccato guitar. The addition of Springsteen's E Street Band pianist Roy Bittan hardly seems less a coincidence considering the Springsteen-esque tone of the material. --Rob O'Connor Amazon.com essential recording

Love Over Gold

Brothers in Arms, fueled by "Money for Nothing," probably sold 10 times as many copies, but for my money, this is the best effort of Mark Knopfler and his band, and one that has stood the test of time. Both the playing and songwriting is inspired throughout (other than the closing "Les Boys", which gave a hint of the novelty songs that were to come later), which can't be said for all of their other cd's. There are plenty of details in other reviews, but one point I haven't seen in the more recent reviews is that as I recall from Knopfler's interviews at the time, the song "Romeo & Juliet," while obviously presented through the classic romance characters, was actually inspired by a real failed romance that Knopfler had tried to rekindle. There's certainly no doubt about the emotion in his delivery of the lyrics in the middle of the song. May 8, 2008

A Stunning Perfect Album

After "Communique", Dire Straits stayed quiet for almost two years, and when this album appeared in 1981, the group was a bit of an afterthought on the world music stage. This brilliant album - considered a landmark throughout Europe - changed all of that.

When I think of my personal favorite albums, "Making Movies" instantly comes to mind. The opening track, "Tunnel Of Love", is an emotional, incredibly played, eight minute masterpiece featuring the E Street Band's Roy Bittan on keyboards. The heartfelt classic "Romeo & Juliet" was a huge hit throughout Europe and was largely responsible for their revival. "Skateaway" is a unique combination of melody, haunting synthesizers and arena rock that remains a classic today. "Expresso Love" and "Solid Rock" are excellent rockers that show off Mark Knopfler's outstanding guitar work, while "Hand In Hand" is a terrific - once again, unique - ballad. If the album ended there, it might be the all time fave of yours truly - but the throwaway "Les Boys" is a giddy and silly cabaret number that is a poor choice to go with the remainder of this outstanding album.

For those who think Dire Straits is all about "Money For Nothing" - this is the album to get - to know how wrong you are! February 21, 2008

(2.5 stars) Decent but overrated, much like its creator

If you ask a lot of fans, this is the peak of Mark Knopfler's career and Brothers in Arms is just crass commercial crapola. Well, I agree that Brothers and Arms is crass commercial crapola, and I will also say that the invigorating "Tunnel of Love", with all kinds of awesome guitar riffs, is the best Dire Straits song I've ever heard. Another thing I like about it is that Knopfler keeps his guitar soloing to a minimum - I don't really think he's anymore than a mediocre soloist - and the song achieves its gigantic length instead through multiple paradigm shifts. There is a guitar solo, though, and it's decent but my least favorite part of the song. As a guitarist, Knopfler tries to emulate the Dave Gilmour Sound(tm) by playing as few notes as possible and hoping that the less-is-more technique will win us over, but why should I listen to a Dave Gilmour imitator when I've got the real thing? (If you were curious, I think Pink Floyd is much better than Dire Straits). Other than the guitar solo, though, it's a pretty good "progressive pop song" with my favorite Knopfler melody by far. It's just that I would've preferred it to last 6:10, rather than its full 8:08. The next song, "Romeo and Juliet", is awesome. You hear? I'm describing a Dire Straits song as awesome. Because it is. The lyrics give the classic love story to end all classic love stories an appropriately cinematic treatment, but the real virtues are in the melody (veeeeeery catchy) and the song's humble, endearing nature. See, the Dire Straits are sometimes boring, but they know their limits and stay with in them. Very rarely is their music terribly inadequate. Only when they try to ROCK OUT, DUDE!!!!!, in fact. Or when they try to appeal to the MTV crowd. But when they shoot for subtle, understated power, they're good. You know why I don't like "Skateaway"? Because it does try to ROCK OUT, DUDE!!!! during the chorus, and tries to make it funky during the verses, but Dire Straits are neither funky nor rocking, and so "Skateaway" fails. But even though it does boogie, I like "Expresso Love", for two reasons: the melody, and the piano. I say screw the guitar parts. And definitely screw the five-minute length. Get rid of the guitar solo, for one. And toss out the last minute, for another. For a third, please tell Knopfler to stop trying to sing like Elvis Costello. Speaking of Elvis Costello, he wrote a song called "Hand in Hand" that's a ton better than the song also called "Hand in Hand" on this album. The one on this album is just a dry piano ballad. Oh yeah, then there's the awful blues-rocker "Solid Rock" and the near-racist "Les Boys". So let's see... if you were to take "Tunnel of Love", "Romeo and Juliet" from this album and "Private Investigations" and "Love Over Gold" from the next, you'd have a really good album! But now... now, it's really uneven. Blerf. December 13, 2007

Another all-time classic

This is another all-time classic, another all-time favorite of mine, still as fascinating as it was 25 years ago when I first heard it. Make sure you get the remastered edition, though, it sounds much better than the non-remastered one. Extremely sensitive love-inspired tracks. June 8, 2007

The foundation of the classic Dire Straits sound

In the late 1970s, Dire Straits was a band that built a strong following. Much of Dire Straits was the result of the awesome guitar work of Mark Knopfler, but there was also some great instrumentation from other band members such as drummer Pick Withers and bassist John Illsley.. In many circles, Knopfler is considered as good as they come. For Dire Straits, they would do things much differently than many of the other bands during the time of the "British Invasion". In an era where Punk and New Wave were taking center stage, Dire Straits were doing things the old-fashioned way - a combination of Classic Rock, Blues, Folk, and even some Country. Knopfler also proven himself to be a top-notch lyricist - writing both humorous and serious songs. The combination of outstanding instrumentation, great lyrics and a mix of old-fashioned Rock genres is really what made Dire Straits such a great band. . The achieved success with their debut album - the self-titled Dire Straits. Although, their follow-up album "Communiqué" followed up, many consider that album not as strong as "Dire Straits". For the band's third album, "Making Movies", some changes would take place - and as a result it would become what many consider to be one of the strongest albums in the Dire Straits portfolio.

On the first two albums, many feel that Dire Straits had a more stripped down basic classic Rock sound. For "Making Movies", things changed. It would be on this album where we would see Dire Straits move toward more-complex arrangements. This trend would actually continue on the album that would follow "Making Movies" - 1982's "Love Over Gold". "Making Movies" would make a major personnel change in that Mark Knopfler's brother, David would depart the band. At the same time, the band would bring in the E Street Band's Roy Bittan to play keyboards. Bittan has one of the most distinctive keyboard sounds in the music business and it often is easy to identify his work. It is Bittan's unique style combined with the outstanding guitar work and music arrangements of the band that helped "Making Movies"s easily emerge as the band's signature sound to date.

There are seven tracks that make up the "Making Movies" album. Here is a track by track review:

"Tunnel of Love": This is the opening track of the collection and has easily become one of the band's classic tracks. The song opens with an arrangement of a melody from Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Carousel". As the song progresses into the "Rock portion", you will first hear Bittan's trademark keyboards followed by Mark Knopfler's trademark guitar. This song presents a great narrative as Knopfler reminisces about his younger days at an amusement park. Overall, this song just seems to capture the signature style that Dire Straits has really garnered a reputation for. I saw one review say that this song this song is "everything that was great about these guys condensed in 8 minutes" - I couldn't agree more.

"Romeo and Juliet": As the title says, this is basically a song about Romeo and Juliet. Here we get Knopfler's unique take and spin on this classic William Shakespeare work. Knopfler displays humor when he says, "Juliet says 'hey it's Romeo you nearly gave me a heart attack'". At the same time Knopfler gives his perspective on the whole story when he says (from Romeo's point of view), "Juliet the dice were loaded from the start". More great instrumentation - especially from Bittan and Knopfler help complete the picture of this story.

"Skateaway": This is a sometimes overlooked song, but nonetheless still a Dire Straits classic. This song might seem simple, yet it demonstrates some of the terrific arrangements by the band. The song paints a picture of a girl at a roller skating rink. Yet the part that really is interesting is how Knopfler tells the story of the girl listening to music on a portable music player (probably a Walkman). The lyrics "she gets rock n roll a rock n roll station; and a rock n roll dream; she's making movies on location" tell the story perfectly. Listen to how Knopfler creates a sound that gives you a feel of the roller rink. At the same time, listen to how the music "changes up" throughout the song. Bittan's keyboards shine as well - you will definitely pick out his classic sound.

"Expresso Love": This is another classic Dire Straits song. It also starts out with some great keyboards by Bittan and like "Tunnel of Love", this progresses into a classic Dire Straits song. Knopfler's guitar chords will have you jamming them over and over again.

"Hand in Hand": This song takes a softer sound when compared to most of the other tracks on this collection. In some ways this reminded me a bit of Dan Fogelberg. In this song, there is a slight country-like sound - and this is something that would become an influence on Knopfler's influence later in his musical career.

"Solid Rock": This is the shortest track on the album, but that doesn't impact anything. This song has a Southern-Rock feel and in some ways, Knopfler's vocals reminded me of Tom Petty. Knopfler's guitar will be the primary star of this song. In this song Knopfler sings about living a safe and conservative kind of life as he sings "Well i'm sick of potential; I'm sick of vanity now". This is another terrific song.

"Les Boys": This song was a most unorthodox song. It basically pokes fun at the female impersonators in the cabaret. The lyrics "Les boys got leather straps....get dressed up get a little risque" tell the whole story. This song does a great job at creating that cabaret feel to it.

The liner notes include all of the lyrics. Overall, this song exemplifies the classic Dire Straits sound. If one has any interest in Dire Straits at all, this would be the album I recommend getting.
May 10, 2007

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