Dire Straits

The Studio Albums ’78-’91 UCM/VIRGIN

Grinder woos Strat in rock’s most celebrated odd-couple romance.

Dire Straits were always a beauty-and-beast band, Mark Knopfler’s life-ravaged deadpan croaking and growling around that jaw dropping Disney princess Stratwork. From the opening twirls of Down To The Waterline from their self-titled debut of 1978, the guitar was the star, and initially pub-rock veteran Knopfler simply gave it some unobtrusive country blues, dub and honky-tonk backdrops before which to preen and pirouette. Among sketches of struggling artistry in Newcastle docklands and Soho dives, that earthy debut’s stand-out Sultans Of Swing – a roots purist’s dream in the dizzy days of disco – was the crude base material that they would refine over the 13 years covered by this extras-free studio album box.

The vivid spark of Lady Writer, from 1979’s catchier second album Communiqué, was an augur of the melodic grandstanding and crystal-sharp storytelling that would make 1980’s Making Movies, home of sublime Stratford-on-Tyne heartbreaker Romeo And Juliet, an early career landmark. Then 1982’s Love Over Gold worked up the underlying atmospherics on mood-building monoliths Private Investigations and birth-of-a-city saga Telegraph Road, and 1985’s Brothers In Arms perfected the blend to 80s-owning effect, Knopfler’s guitar work grown so weightless on So Far Away, Why Worry and the title track that it virtually floats out of the sleeve. Discard 1991’s slick, trad-hearted after-thought On Every Street on purchase and you’ve got one of rock’s classiest, steadiest ascents, lightning both bottled and bruised. ■■■■■■■■■■