Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms (1985)

Dan:

Having attained stardom, Dire Straits upped their game even further with Brothers in Arms, an album that seemingly had it all: great production using digital sound, pop hits, deep messages, and musical artistry. 

The hit single, "Money for Nothing," got frequent play on MTV and FM radio. It was as popular as "Sultans of Swing" was on their first album, but the clever video helped to boost its exposure and popularity. An uncredited appearance by Sting echoing the phrase "money for nothing" in his high-pitched voice helped as well. I thought the song was a bit foolish, but I'm sure that was part of its appeal. 

What I like most about Brothers in Arms is its songcraft. Once past the first three songs on side 1 ("So Far Away," "Money for Nothing" and "Walk of Life"), the deeper messages creep in. "Your Latest Trick" serves up an ambiguous relationship between a musician and someone else - a hooker? - a girlfriend? - a manager? Whatever, the night life scene is described in grim detail, buoyed by a lazy tempo and Mark Knopfler's vocals. Side 1 closes with "Why Worry," a simple song of comfort to a woman suffering from the blues. 

Side 2 steers the album into even more serious territory: the horror of war. "Ride Across the River" pictures a mercenary:

Now I'm a soldier of fortune, I'm a dog of war

And we don't give a damn who the killing is for

Yeah it's the same old story with a different name

Death or glory, it's the killing game

To say the least, that's a long way from the silliness of "Money for Nothing." The next song, "The Man's Too Strong," remorsefully lays some of the guilt for war crimes at the feet of "the man." 

Oh, Father, please help me

For I have done wrong

The man's too big

The man's too strong

"One World" then portrays a weary protagonist unable to find an antidote for his blues and realizing that the ideal "one world in harmony" is elusive. 

The closing title song offers a heartfelt narrative by a soldier dying after being wounded in combat. Removed from his homeland valley, he is abandoned in the mist-covered mountains, his final resting place. It's a wistfully sad song that comes to the conclusion that "we're fools to wage war on our brothers in arms." The sadness oozes from the melody, slow tempo and the stunningly sincere voice of Mark Knopfler. He reportedly felt the weight of the Falklands war in 1982 between the UK and Argentina. Such beautiful melancholy and depth of feeling grabs me every time. 

Overall, side 2 deals better with anti-war sentiment than any other rock album I've heard. It's a masterpiece of conception and execution, all within the confines of progressive rock. Simply remarkable!

Steve:

Brothers in Arms was all the rage in 1985. Funny as it seems today, the one song I thought had no chance of being a hit was "Money for Nothing" - simply because of the use of a certain F-word (thrice in the second verse, no less). F-word notwithstanding, I was glad when it did catch on, since it's a pretty rockin' tune, and the subject matter was pretty timely. Sung from the point of view of a guy working in an appliance store ("we gotta install microwave ovens, custom kitchen deliveries"), it apparently paraphrases conversations Knopfler overheard from one such guy complaining about MTV and how little talent was needed to make it in the music business. Knopfler also uses a guitar tone which was quite popular at the time, and one which I don't think he had used before. It resembles the grungy riffing of ZZ Top, who were huge on MTV in the wake of their Eliminator album (1983).

These days, my favorite track is "Ride Across the River", whose spacious production and world-music elements (mariachi trumpet, a synth imitating a pan flute, a vague reggae feel) are typical of the production style of other sophisticated pop artists of the time (Peter Gabriel, Bryan Ferry, Paul Simon, etc.). Mark Knopfler's expressive lead guitar over the top of this stew ensures its place as a classic track, although I had not bothered to ponder its lyrical meaning until reading Dan's comments above. "The Man's Too Strong" was always a favorite of mine too. The loud resolving guitar chords in the chorus of this otherwise quiet song drive home the anger the song is trying to convey.

R.E.M. - Fables of the Reconstruction (1985)

Dan: 

I thought Steve discovered R.E.M. in 1983 when the hype surrounding their Murmur album was reaching a fever pitch. I never caught that early fever myself and continue to regard Murmur as primitive (which may be why the indie college band fans loved it). As one of two bands from Athens, Georgia to remerge in the late 70s (the other being the B-52's), R.E.M. leveraged their cult following into an international phenomenon. 

By the time Fables of the Reconstruction was released, I too was in an R.E.M. frenzy. I remember going to Spec's with Steve to find their earlier recordings and coming home with Reckoning, which we played often. Such visits were like little adventures, not knowing what we might find. Surfing the Internet for music is just not the same. 

R.E.M. were touring in 1985 to support Fables, so Steve and I decided to attend the concert in Miami. He was about 15 at the time and I was 40. (Once again, he was probably the youngest person in attendance, and I was the oldest). There was an opening act, which Steve will brag about, but which I did not place much importance on. Then the first notes of Peter Buck's guitar pierced the room, and R.E.M. opened with "Feeling Gravity's Pull." It was an electric moment for me, as the crowd reached for their lighters and cheered. I felt pretty old at that moment, but I knew the music as well as anyone there. 

Michael Stipe emerged wearing a skirt, as several girls jumped on stage to grab Peter Buck. Mike Mills and Bill Berry stayed away from the action taking care of business on bass and drums, respectively. I truly enjoyed the concert, which was one of the handful of rock concerts I've ever been to. (I've been to many more live jazz performances, but that's another set of stories).

My favorite songs on the album are "Gravity's Pull," "Life and How to Live it," "Can't Get There from Here," and the closer "Wendell Gee." "Wendell" is perhaps the best actual song on the album because it's about someone and something; Many R.E.M. songs, especially from early albums, don't make much literal sense and Stipe has admitted to being afflicted by the "stream of consciousness syndrome." 

I followed R.E.M. through Lifes Rich Pageant, Document, Green, Out of Time, and Automatic for the People. Monster was a big disappointment that I never overcame. For me, their best work ended with Automatic, and the older Document rivals Fables for top honors in my rankings of R.E.M. recordings.

R.E.M. got cute with the title of Fables. The full title of the album was Fables of The Reconstruction / Reconstruction of the Fables. Side A was titled "Fables of the Reconstruction." Side 2 was designated as "Another Side - Reconstruction of the Fables." For a Georgia- based band, the meanings of these titles were certainly intended to be more than cute. I'll invite readers to ponder any hidden meanings.

Steve:

Although I first heard R.E.M. by way of their first single, "Radio Free Europe", the first time I became interested in the band and heard a full album was with Fables of the Reconstruction, contrary to Dan's guess above. In our post about New Order's Low Life album, I wrote about my summer of 1985 when I got a job as a 16-year-old in a big record store and learned a lot about what I then called "college rock", but which is now more often described as "80s Alternative". Fables was one of the key albums that I heard daily in the store during that time, and its strange, languid folk rock really grew on me. Apparently, the band thinks it is their worst album - at the very least, they never made another album like it. The fact that it quickly became and remained my favorite R.E.M. album put me in a difficult position as a fan of the band, as each subsequent album moved further away from what I liked about the band in the first place. (Dan comment: yeah, me too!).

"Feeling Gravity's Pull" is one of their weirdest songs. Not only does it open Fables, but it gave me my first impression of the band (notwithstanding "Radio Free Europe", which I hadn't heard in a couple of years by that time). Imagine hearing Elvis Costello for the first time by putting on Imperial Bedroom and having "Beyond Belief" be your first introduction to the man. Not a complete departure for him, but definitely of a different breed than the rest of his material, and even the rest of that album. "Feeling Gravity's Pull" opens with a dissonant guitar note sequence played through what sounds like a Leslie speaker, and as the song progresses it acquires spooky string sounds, as Michael Stipe sings about the sensation of falling asleep while you read. Most of the songs on the album have that hazy, drifting-off-to-sleep quality, but it's an uneasy, troubled sleep. That's a neat mood to capture.

For the concert Dan mentioned, I originally wanted to take this girl at school I wanted to ask out. She had never heard of R.E.M. (admittedly, not many people had at this early point in their career) and politely declined because of the "it's a school night" rationale. I remember I was denied the chance to accept a free ticket to see Rush in 1982 on the same grounds. Oh well, what can you do. We were only teenagers, much younger than my own daughter is now, and I'd probably tell her the same thing. If my preferred date had gone with me, I might not be writing this today, because in her stead, my father Dan came with me to the show.

Incidentally, Dan insinuated that I would probably brag about the opening band, and indeed I will. The Minutemen, a punk band from California, opened for R.E.M. on that tour, and their style was so unusual that it was admittedly a little off-putting at the time. However, the longer-term effects of that show were considerable: I bought a couple of their LPs a week or so later, and my interest in them snowballed to the point where within a month or so they were my favorite band. Just as my fascination with the band and my eager anticipation of their next move was at its peak, singer/guitarist D. Boon died in an auto accident, abruptly putting an end to the band. That was my own JFK moment. Still hurts to this day, and my fandom hasn't faded a bit. Today, the Minutemen are hailed as innovators and a model of independence and ingenuity outside the confines of genre classifications and corporate labels.

So thanks, R.E.M.!

New Order - Low Life (1985)

Steve:

When I turned 16 years old (summer 1985), I applied for a job at Spec's, the biggest, baddest record store in Miami. They had a separate room for their classical music, including a full-time employee who handled only classical. Predating Blockbuster, they also had a separate room for video rental and sales. This was clearly the place for me. I fancied myself a music expert - with a budding record collection and a father from whom I learned plenty - and I sought to play to my strengths by working in a place where music albums were the stock-in-trade.

I spent my first few weeks just walking the floor, helping anyone who needed it.  Occasionally, my expertise came in handy; I recall one customer who asked for advice on what to get by Talking Heads. Ha! Step right up, ma'am. I'll set you right up. That was the exception to the rule, however. Usually, most people asked for a few popular albums, and working there was not particularly exciting except for the music I heard in the store.

The other employees in the store were several years older than me, and they were given free rein to play any records they wanted. I could probably write a book about the various albums and bands I was exposed to for the first time that summer. Lots of popular albums played that are still popular today (a-ha's Hunting High and Low comes first to mind, at least its unavoidable-on-80s-playlists "Take On Me"), but I also heard a lot of bands that today are generally thought of as "80s Alternative" - what I knew in the day as "College Rock".

New Order's Low Life was one of my favorite albums played during this period. Having evolved gradually into a synth-driven sound in the time since their inception in 1981 (following the suicide of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, prompting a name change for the band). New Order still relied heavily on guitar and particularly bass, which Peter Hook would play high on the neck to provide most of the songs' melodic hooks (pun intended). "The Perfect Kiss" (released as a single) rides on a bed of synthesizers, but it's Hook's bass that provides the most recognizable stamp. "This Time of Night" similarly has a comfortable balance between synth-pop and guitar rock.  

Straight guitar rock finds its way onto Low Life as well. The album opens with a track that sounds like nothing else the band had yet tried. "Love Vigilantes" was a clear attempt at a folk protest song - guitar based, but with the full production of their synth-based pieces - that opens with a melodica (taking the place of a harmonica, I guess). The song is delivered in the first person by a soldier who is looking forward to returning home. The payoff occurs when it is revealed at the end that the soldier was in fact dead. "Sunrise" has all the power and intensity of an epic rock song, full of volume, speed, and urgent vocals.

As soon as I was able, I bought a copy of Low Life, followed by New Order's previous albums Power, Corruption and Lies and Movement. Oddly, none of their subsequent albums really captured my fancy like my first three, but I attribute this to my favorites being just what I needed at the time (especially Low Life) - a totally new musical interest for me when the joy of discovery was at its peak. 

My interest must have rubbed off on Dan, although I don't specifically remember introducing him to New Order. It didn't seem to me like something he would particularly enjoy. But he insisted on its inclusion in the blog. 

Dan:

As a parent, I might have tried to steer my teenagers into listening to "appropriate" music, free of subversive messages and racy lyrics. But I knew from experience that parental protest lands on deaf ears and merely fuels rebellion. When I was growing up in the 1950s, rock and roll was viewed by some as the devil's music and icons like Elvis Presley as dangerously vulgar. So I opened my own ears to hear what the kids liked. And here I am today sharing wisdom that I received from my son, aptly expressed in Blood, Sweat and Tears' album title: Child Is Father to the Man (1968). In the spirit of "everything comes around," I note that Steve admires Al Kooper, who sings and composed most of the music on Child Is Father to the Man, which was released the year before he was born. 

I remember how excited Steve's mother and I were when he landed his job at Spec's. To prepare him, I pretended to be a customer asking for advice ("Excuse me, son, do you have the German pressing of Herbert Joos's Daybreak album on Japo?"). I had a bit of experience answering such questions when other customers in the jazz section asked for my help - "Which of Coltrane's albums should I buy?" (Answer: all of them but start with Giant Steps).

Reviewing Low Life is a good opportunity to reveal my life-long secret that I like dance music. I actually owned albums by Donna Summer and the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, as well as Thriller by Michael Jackson (if only for "Billie Jean"). It's a guilty pleasure that I rarely indulge in, given my other musical interests. New Order fills the bill for danceable beats but also meaningful synth rock, especially in Low Life and a couple of later albums.

"Love Vigilantes" is my favorite track on Low Life. A dead protagonist lamenting that he wants to be home with his family is not your run-of-the-mill storyline in rock music. New Order deliver the soldier's message without self-righteously decrying the evils of war; they leave it for the listener to judge the morality in the song. It seems to be New Order's style to remain peculiarly detached and emotionally uninvolved with the lyrics while making the music sound almost joyous. (If someone like Joan Baez or Richard Thompson ever covered this song, I'm sure it would be brimming with angry sentiment.) New Order also name their songs so as not to reveal much about their meaning. This tends to open the music up to a wider range of interpretation.

I remember buying a sealed vinyl cutout of Low Life at another store in Miami. As CDs began to replace vinyl in the 1980s, records were dumped rather unceremoniously into racks where people like me could scoop them up for about $5.00. Today, you might need to pay over $50.00 for a used vinyl copy. Such are the vagaries of media formatting.