Published on May 27, 1997
You might call Dire Straits the
“not-quite-ready-for-prime-time-band.” The band was hardly flashy
though somewhat tuneful, and lead singer Mark Knopfler was, at
best, a shaky singer, preferring to speak his vocals a la Bob Dylan
rather than sing them somewhat off-key.
By the time 1982 rolled around, some may have seen Dire Straits
as a “one-hit wonder” as a result of their surprise hit “Sultans Of
Swing.” Unfortunately for the band, their effort that year,
Love Over Gold, did little to diminish that opinion.
Undoubtedly this was Dire Straits at their most pompous and
overblown.
The fist sign of excess is shown, ironically, in the fact there
are only five tracks on the whole album. But the shortest of these
clocks in at just under six minutes – the single “Industrial
Disease” – making this album very radio unfriendly.
And while “Industrial Disease” starts to show the direction that
Knopfler was ready to take the band, it shows they weren’t quite
hitting the bull’s-eye of writing pop songs. Knopfler’s delivery is
often very hard to understand, and the organ use makes the song
sound like a bad, overdrawn version of “California Sun” at times.
(Rule number seven of rock music: you can’t get away with writing
long songs until you’ve made it to the top.)
The remainder of the album basically repeats itself – overblown
arrangements with little substance. The end result for the listner
– boredom. Die-hard fans of the group may find the song “Telegraph
Road” to be a masterpiece, but it’s so much whacking off on the
guitar and keyboards. This song could have been decent –
maybe – if they had cut it in half.
There are a few songs which, had they been worked on a little
longer and undergone the knife in the editing room, could have had
some promise. The title track is a shade too long, while “It Never
Rains” is a shade weak in the songwriting department. On the latter
track, Knopfler’s guitar work proves to be a greater distraction –
he had yet to capture the shuffle that was on “Sultans Of Swing,”
and resorting to distortion in a solo isn’t the answer.
And while I’m counting my blessings that Knopfler didn’t pad
this album with more crappy tracks, one wonders if the album
couldn’t have been improved with a few more tracks.
It’s sometimes hard to believe that this is the same band that
lept to the top of the charts with
Brothers In Arms and the songs “Money For Nothing” and “Walk
Of Life” – in some ways, maybe it wasn’t the same band. But
Love Over Gold is one painful growth process to plow
through, and is not recommended except for diehard fans looking to
complete their collections.