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It was all MTV’s fault that I almost abandoned my favourite band. By 1984, MTV was huge. So were Dire Straits. But… they just weren’t getting much MTV airplay – I guess that’s difficult with a 17 minute ‘Telegraph Road’, and, a lead singer who hated music videos (and wasn’t too fond of MTV either) ?!

But Mark Knopfler was determined to make Dire Straits MTV stars. So he set about creating a new, MTV-friendly album. To make it really work though he needed a stand-out single that would conquer MTV. As it happened, one evening in an electronics store in NYC, he saw a wall of TVs, all playing MTV. Standing in front of this display was hard-hat type, mouthing off about the rock stars on MTV, who were “getting money for nothing and their chicks for free”. Knopfler grabbed a pen and paper, and started transcribing what the guy was saying as he watched MTV – “What’s that, Hawaiian noises? Banging on the bongos like a chimpanzee….No that ain’t workin’” etc etc….! Within hours he had set the lyrics he needed, writing a a song panning MTV – but one that he knew they couldn’t resist!! A few weeks later, when the song was ready, Sting happened to drop by and listened to it. He was blown away, and when Knopfler asked him to join in and parody the MTV advertising slogan “I Want My MTV”, he couldn’t resist. In an hour or so, Sting recorded his falsetto “I Want My MTV” intro to the song. The MTV execs loved it !!!! (“any publicity is good publicity” ??). Only thing missing however, was a video – they refused to air it with a boring video of Mark Knopfler standing and singing?. So, the iconic animated video was created, mostly over Knopfler’s objections. And the rest, as they say, is history – MTV played “Money For Nothing” on loop for months, making it #1 all over the world, and, made Dire Straits megastars.

The whole world went absolutely nuts, making ‘Brothers In Arms’ one of the biggest selling albums of all time. ….. Me, on the other hand….ummmm…. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the song?. This was not the Dire Straits that made ‘Water of Love’, ‘Romeo & Juliet’ & ‘Private Investigations’. I was actually a little pissed off – this felt like a sell-out ??. It was bloody ‘Pop-Rock’ not ‘Graceful-Rock’ (new genre coined by moi for Dire Straits)! Luckily, the rest of the ‘Brothers In Arms’ album was a throwback to the debut ‘Dire Straits’ sound, and I was saved. Else, I might have abandoned Dire Straits forever, right then and there.

For me, the rest of the songs are what make the album great. “Why Worry” is my favourite track on the album – it’s my go-to song when I’m feeling down. (Coldplay’s “Fix You” reminds me so much of this song). “So Far Away”, “Walk of Life”, “Your Latest Trick”, “Brothers In Arms”, “Ride Across The River”…. are all fabulous songs, each one a short movie, just like the Dire Straits of yore! I do love this album (minus MFN).

Unfortunately, “Brothers In Arms” was more or less the end of Dire Straits. After three years of touring the album, Knopfler decided it was time to take a break. They took one for six years – till ’91 – when they released ‘On Every Street’ – another great album (not covered here as it is out of syllabus since it was released in the ‘90s). And that, was that. The group split up and went their own ways, with Knopfler onto his amazing solo career, determined not to revisit the Dire Straits era of his life. 

RIP Dire Straits – my favourite band of all time! “Graceful Rock” indeed!