Search - Dire Straits :: Love Over Gold

Best CD of All Time!!!!

Telegraph Road | Fallon, Nevada, United States of America | 07/02/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This album is great!!!Every song I rate is 4-5 stars.1. Telegraph Road: Great album opener, it is an epic, very
long. Starts out with nothing first, then comes along with a
true story. And then the song has a great ending to it. This is
my favorite song on the entire CD.2. Private Investigations: Nice acoustic work! I love the loud
heavy metal guitar. A must listen to if you are a heavy metal
fan! 3. Industrial Disease: I love this song! It has great lyrics
and great music. Sometimes I repeat this song because it it so
funny. My favorite part is where Doctor Parkinson speaks.
At first I didn't like this, but later, it grew on me and I like
it a lot. Great work.4. Love over Gold: One of my favorite songs on this! Nice song,
I love the ending. I think this is one of the best acoustic songs
of all time!! 5. It Never Rains: Perfect way to close this album!! This has
some of the best heavy metal riffs I have ever heard. Nice lyrics
and sometimes I repeat this track again! One of the best DS songs
ever recorded. Overall, the best 80's album ever!!Dire Straits are one of the greatest bands of all time!!Buy it now."

Stellar compositions.

Themis-Athena | from somewhere between California and Germany | 10/04/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Mark Knopfler obviously loves to write passacaglias -- pieces of music that start with a very basic theme, played by only one or very few instruments and, often over repeated crescendos and slow-downs, increasing in volume and instrumentation to a rousing finale, performed by either all instruments or the instrumental lead "voice;" in Knopfler's case of course his trademark Fender Strat. "Brothers in Arms" has elements of a passacaglia, and so does "Speedway to Nazareth" on his latest solo release, "Sailing to Philadelphia." His greatest achievement though, not only in this regard, has to be "Telegraph Road," the opening track of "Love Over Gold." In a little over 14 minutes, the song rises from a simple opening melody, evoking the loneliness of that man walking along a deserted track at the beginning of the song's story, to a final guitar solo which is among the most ambitious and evocative pieces of music written by anyone in recent decades, anywhere and in any musical category. In between, there are no less than two other guitar solos, each of them over a minute long; dramatic centerpieces in their own right in any song but this one. And like the song's instrumentation, its lyrics trace the story of civilization from that one man walking along a track to a modern city, with six lines of traffic (three lines moving slow), unemployment, desolation and anger; so apparent in Knopfler's coarse vocals in the final verse and echoed with even greater force in the instrumental finale.



"Telegraph Road" is followed by the sinister "Private Investigations," reminiscent of Alan Parsons's interpretation of the Poe classic "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" (listen to that steady beat underneath the instrumental part and tell me you don't hear the "Tell Tale Heart"), and as daring and elaborate in its composition as "Telegraph Road." Both pieces are made possible by the advent of Alan Clark and his skills as a pianist; and yet, here as there it is Knopfler's guitar play that takes front and center stage. Next is the wicked "Industrial Disease," followed by the album's title track, and last, "It Never Rains," Knopfler's bow to Bob Dylan, rendered in an interpretation so true to life that you inadvertently feel yourself transported back by a decade or more and expect him switch into "The Times They Are A-Changin'" any second. One may wonder why the record, given its mostly gloomy and cynical mood, was not named for one of the two equally stunning and dark first tracks. Perhaps, however, the answer lies in the title song's last verse: "It takes love over gold and mind over matter to do what you do that you must, when the things that you hold can fall and be shattered or run through your fingers like dust."



The album's cover rightly (although somewhat unnecessarily) describes "Love Over Gold" as "one of Dire Straits' most ambitiously conceived projects to date" and points out that it "reflects almost a year's worth of meticulous attention." Short of his film music (which he was not to start writing until a year later, with "Local Hero"), this album was the closest yet that Knopfler has come to classical composition; not just in the record's first two masterpieces but right down to little details like the xylophone air underneath the title track. It was a hard act to follow, even for a Mark Knopfler; and his virtually only choice was to take his music into other, and more diverse directions ("Brothers in Arms"). Listening to the remastered CD version of "Love Over Gold," you almost forget that unlike its mega-selling successor this recording was not "made for CD;" which in itself speaks volumes to the quality of the sound engineering and production and, more importantly, to the indeed "meticulous attention" given to every single instrumental and human voice of every single track on the album. In all of its 41+ minutes, and although it does not reflect as wide a range of musical styles as Knopfler's later work, "Love Over Gold" is one of the most complex pieces of recording he ever produced. It may have taken the release of "Brothers in Arms" to propel Dire Straits to worldwide fame forever. But it is impossible to listen to "Love Over Gold" and not recognize the unique talent of a man who, having found an initial foothold in the musical scene through the success of his band's first three albums, here made it clear once and for all just how much more the world had yet to expect from him.



Also recommended:

Alchemy: Dire Straits Live

On the Night

Dire Straits

Night in London

Sailing to Philadelphia (CD & DVD Audio)

Local Hero (1983 Film)"