Brothers in Arms (album)

Initial recording sessions (and departure of Hal Lindes) in Montserrat (pictured in 2013), frequented by many famous artists and bands in the late 1970s and 1980s. The initial recording sessions for Brothers in Arms took place between 2 November and 21 December 1984 at AIR Studios on the island of Montserrat, a British overseas territory in the Caribbean. Before arriving at Montserrat, Knopfler had written all the songs and rehearsed them with the band; which, at the time of recording, was himself (vocals, guitar), John Illsley (bass, backing vocals), Hal Lindes (guitar), Alan Clark (piano, organ), Terry Williams (drums) and new member Guy Fletcher (synthesisers, backing vocals). The studio itself was small, with a recording space that offered virtually no isolation. "It was a good-sounding studio," Dorfsman later recalled, "but the main room itself was nothing to write home about. The sound of that studio was the desk," referring to the Neve 8078 board. According to a later Sound on Sound magazine interview with Neil Dorfsman, he and Knopfler had decided that Williams' performances were unsuitable for the desired sound of the album. Williams himself, meanwhile, has claimed that he had recorded all his drum parts to a click track, which he felt limited his playing and feel in the studio. On the eventual release of the album, both Hakim and Williams were credited with drumming. Williams’ contributions on the album are limited to "Walk of Life" and the improvised drum crescendo at the beginning of "Money for Nothing", with Hakim playing all remaining parts on this and the album's other tracks. Williams was not, however, dismissed from the band: he featured as drummer in all the music videos and throughout the 1985–1986 Brothers in Arms world tour that followed. Shortly before Christmas 1984, during a break in the recording schedule, Knopfler approached and recruited Jack Sonni, a New York guitarist and longstanding friend, for the rhythm guitar position vacated by Hal Lindes the previous month. Subsequently, after the Christmas break, a second set of recording sessions took place in Montserrat between 3 January and 6 February 1985. Coincidentally, Omar Hakim (who was recording his drum parts for the album at that point) met Sting for the first time during the "Money For Nothing" session, eventually landing the gig as drummer in the latter's backing band for The Dream of the Blue Turtles album and tour. New York sessions, 1985 (including bass guitar substitutions) Subsequently, the album sessions subsequently relocated to the Power Station in New York in February 1985 for additional overdubs. Levin contributed bass parts to "Why Worry". Jack Sonni also recorded his first (and only) contribution to a Dire Straits album, playing some guitar synthesiser parts on "The Man's Too Strong" ==Supporting tour, 1985-1986==

Dire Straits began their promotional concert world tour on 25 April 1985 in Split, Croatia (then part of Yugoslavia), with Sonni now a full time member on rhythm guitar and Williams back on drums. The tour lasted a full year, concluding in April 1986. This also concluded Jack Sonni's time as a Dire Straits member: he was not present for the band's very occasional performances during the following two years' hiatus, and was not involved with the next album On Every Street. ==Composition==

Brothers in Arms has been described musically as a pop rock album. The music video for "Money for Nothing" received heavy rotation on MTV, and it was the first to be aired on MTV Europe when the network launched on 1 August 1987. It is one of only two Dire Straits songs on a studio album not to be solely credited to Knopfler (the other being "The Carousel Waltz", which opens Making Movies), with guest vocalist Sting given a co-writing credit due to the melody of the repeated "I want my MTV" (sung by Sting) at the start echoing the melody of the Police's "Don't Stand So Close to Me". "Walk of Life" was a number two hit in the UK Singles Chart in early 1986 and a number seven hit in the US Billboard Hot 100 later that year. The song was nearly left off the album, but was included after the band out-voted producer Neil Dorfsman. On the second side of the album, three songs ("Ride Across the River", "The Man's Too Strong" and "Brothers in Arms") are lyrically focused on militarism. "Ride Across the River" uses immersive Latin American imagery, accompanied by synthesised pan flute, mariachi trumpet, a reggae-influenced drum part and eerie background noises including synthesized cricket chirps. "The Man's Too Strong" depicts the character of an ancient soldier (or war criminal) and his fear of showing feelings as a weakness. Written during the 1982 Falklands War, "Brothers in Arms" deals with the senselessness of war. In 2007, the 25th anniversary of the war, Knopfler recorded a new version of the song at Abbey Road Studios to raise funds for British veterans who he said "are still suffering from the effects of that conflict". ==Artwork==

The guitar featured on the front of the album cover is Mark Knopfler's 1937 14-fret National Style "O" Resonator. The Style "O" line of guitars was introduced in 1930 and discontinued in 1941. The photographer was Deborah Feingold. The back cover features a painting of the same guitar, by German artist Thomas Steyer. A similar image was also used, with a similar colour scheme, for the 1989 album The Booze Brothers by Brewers Droop, which features Knopfler on a few tracks. Despite being on the front cover, the guitar was not primarily used on any of the tracks of the album. ==Release==

Brothers in Arms was one of the first albums directed at the CD market, and it was a full digital recording (DDD) at a time when most popular music was recorded on analog equipment. It was also released on vinyl (abridged to fit on one LP) and cassette. Brothers in Arms was the first album to sell one million copies in the CD format and to outsell its LP version. Rykodisc co-founder Rob Simonds subsequently wrote, "[In 1985] we were fighting to get our CDs manufactured because the entire worldwide manufacturing capacity was overwhelmed by demand for a single rock title (Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms)." It was remastered and reissued with the rest of the Dire Straits catalogue in 1996 for most of the world outside the United States, and on 19 September 2000 in the United States. The remastering for both reissues was done by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering using the Super Bit Mapping process. In 2000, it was released on XRCD2 format, remastered by Hiromichi Takiguchi using K2 20bit technology. A 20th anniversary edition was issued on Super Audio CD on 26 July 2005 (becoming the 3000th title for the SACD format), featuring a 5.1 surround sound remix done by Chuck Ainlay at British Grove Studios. It was mastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering. The 5.1 mix was also released on DualDisc format with DVD-Audio 24 bit/96 kHz track on 16 August 2005. Ainlay's 5.1 remix won a Grammy for Best Surround Sound Album at the 48th Grammy Awards ceremony. In 2006, a half-speed–mastered vinyl version of the album was issued. Mastered by Stan Ricker, this version consists of four sides on two 33 1/3 rpm discs, containing the full-length songs on vinyl for the first time. In 2013, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab released a hybrid SACD mastered from the original tapes by Shawn R. Britton. It includes the original stereo mix only. In 2014, a new master was released in Japan on SHM-SACD – it is made from the original analogue master tapes and contains the original LP length of the album: 47:44. This edition was transferred by Mick McKenna and Richard Whittaker at FX Copyroom using Direct Stream Digital. On 19 May 2014, Vertigo reissued the album on double 180g vinyl; this edition contains the full-length songs. It was mastered by Bob Ludwig, Bernie Grundman and Chris Bellman from the original analogue and digital tapes, and was also included on The Studio Albums 1978–1991 the previous year. In 2015, Mobile Fidelity also released the album on double 45 RPM vinyl, which was mastered by Krieg Wunderlich. The same year, the album re-entered the UK Albums Chart at number 8 following the record being made available at a discounted price on digital music retailers. In March 2021, a new half-speed mastered edition was released, mastered at Abbey Road Studios by Miles Showell. The release was a double-LP, 45 rpm, 180 gram edition, with the complete version of the album, for only the second time (the first being issued by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab in 2015). The album has spent a total of 356 weeks on the UK Albums Chart. On 16 May 2025, the 40th anniversary of the album’s original release, the album was re-released issued on Blu-ray with Dolby Atmos and 24 bit/96KHz version of the original CD and Vinyl mixes. It was also re-released as a five LP box set and triple CD. This edition included the full studio album as well as a previously unreleased full-length live concert from 16 August 1985, at the band’s Municipal Auditorium, San Antonio during the promotional concert world tour, the first time that a full length concert from the 1985-86 tour has been made available on album. ==Critical reception==

Contemporary Initial reviews of Brothers in Arms from the UK music press in 1985 were generally negative. In a scathing review for NME, Mat Snow criticised Knopfler's "mawkish self-pity, his lugubriously mannered appropriation of rockin' Americana, his thumpingly crass attempts at wit". He also accused the album of the "tritest would-be melodies in history, the last word in tranquilising chord changes, the most cloying lonesome playing and ultimate in transparently fake troubador sentiment ever to ooze out of a million-dollar recording studio". Eleanor Levy of Record Mirror dismissed the "West Coast guitars reeking of mega bucks and sell out stadium concerts throughout the globe. Laid back melodies. Dire Straits – summed up... This is like any other Dire Straits album quarried out of the tottering edifice of MOR rock." The reviews from other UK music papers were less harsh, with Jack Barron of Sounds feeling that "it's only a halfway decent album because it has only halfway decent songs... Knopfler has distilled his sonic essence, via blues, to appeal to billboard romantics with cinemascope insecurities. And he can pull it off well... but not often enough here." Melody Makers Barry McIlheney observed that Knopfler had recently explored different creative directions with his work on movie soundtracks and on Bob Dylan's Infidels, and bemoaned that "this admirable spirit of adventure fails to materialise... Instead it sounds just a bit too like the last Dire Straits album, which sounded not unlike the last one before that, which sounded suspiciously like the beginning of a hugely successful and very lucrative plan to take over the world known as AOR". He concluded, "the old rockschool restraints and the undeniably attractive smell of the winning formula seem to block out any such experimental work and what you end up with is something very like the same old story". US reviews were more positive. Writing for Spin magazine, E. Brooks praised Knopfler's guitar work and noted that "when the intensity of his words approaches that of his ravishing stratocaster licks, the song soars. That doesn't happen as often as I'd like on this new album [...] but I find myself returning to certain cuts the way one might come back to a favorite chair." Brooks singled out the "haunting ballad" "Your Latest Trick", the "acerbic satire of vid-rock culture" in "Money for Nothing" and the "outstanding craftsmanship in the words and music" of the title track, which was "not a new message, but at least something other than sex, cars, or drugs is being talked about here. Take that and the quality of the musicianship, and you've got a lot." Debby Bull gave the album a mixed review for Rolling Stone magazine, praising the "carefully crafted" effort, writing, "The record is beautifully produced, with Mark Knopfler's terrific guitar work catching the best light". Although she found the lyrics literate, Bull noted that the scenarios "aren't as interesting as they used to be on records like Making Movies". Despite the production values and notable contributions from guest artists like drummer Omar Hakim and the Brecker Brothers, Bull concluded that "the music lacks the ache that made Knopfler's recent soundtracks for Comfort and Joy and Cal so powerful." In Rolling Stones end-of-year round-up of 1985's key albums, Fred Schruers said that "Knopfler's nimble, evocative guitar style and gentle vocalizing are still as appealing as they were on previous scenario-rich albums". Retrospective In 1996, British music journalist Robert Sandall wrote: Reviewing the remastered Dire Straits albums in 1996, Rob Beattie of Q awarded Brothers in Arms five stars out of five and wrote that "repeated listening reveals it as a singularly melancholic collection – see the guitar slashing of 'The Man's Too Strong' and the title track, where joy is as sharp as sorrow". In a 2007 review for BBC Music, Chris Jones called Brothers in Arms "a phenomenon on every level... a suite of Knopfler's very fine brand of JJ Cale-lite". In his retrospective review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave the album four out of five stars, crediting the international success of the album not only to the clever computer-animated video for "Money for Nothing", but also to Knopfler's "increased sense of pop songcraft". According to Erlewine, Dire Straits had "never been so concise or pop-oriented, and it wore well on them". Erlewine concluded that the album remains "one of their most focused and accomplished albums, and in its succinct pop sense, it's distinctive within their catalog". In 2010, when Brothers in Arms was among ten albums nominated for the best British album of the past 30 years by the Brit Awards, music broadcaster and author Paul Gambaccini described the list of nominees as "risible" but added, "Brothers in Arms runs away with it for the quality of songwriting and musicianship." In 2018, Classic Rock wrote that Brothers in Arms "made Dire Straits superstars, but it also warped the popular perception of both Knopfler and his band. Dire Straits became a byword for a certain sort of safe, homogenised music, and Knopfler was turned into a caricature of the middle-aged rocker, with jacket sleeves rolled up and wearing a headband [...] It wasn't even as if he had contrived to make a blockbuster. In large part it was hushed and melancholy, a sigh rather than a roar. But it was damned by having its signature single explode out of context." Accolades Brothers in Arms won Best British Album at the 1987 Brit Awards (in a first-time occurrence, it had actually been nominated for Best Album a year earlier at the 1986 Brit Awards but lost out to Phil Collins' No Jacket Required, before being nominated again the following year due to its chart longevity). Also in 1986, the album won a Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, while the 20th Anniversary Edition won another Grammy in 2006 for Best Surround Sound Album. In 2000, Q magazine placed the album at number 51 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2003, the album ranked number 351 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time", and number 352 in a 2012 revised list, and number 418 in the 2020 revision. The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In November 2006 the results of a national poll conducted by the public of Australia revealed their top 100 favourite albums. Brothers in Arms came in at number 64 (see "My Favourite Album"). Brothers in Arms is ranked number three in the best albums of 1985 and number 31 in the best albums of the 1980s. As of July 2016 Brothers in Arms is the eighth-best-selling album of all-time in the UK. In the Netherlands, the album held the record for longest run ever on the Dutch Album chart with 269 weeks (non-consecutive) but was surpassed by Adele's album 21 in 2016. Awards and nominations ==Track listings==

All songs written by Mark Knopfler, except "Money for Nothing", written by Knopfler and Sting. The CD and cassette versions feature full versions of "So Far Away", "Money for Nothing", "Your Latest Trick" and "Why Worry". Because of this, side two of the cassette version has about 10 minutes of blank tape. Single LP track listing ==Personnel==

Credits adapted from album liner notes. Dire Straits • Mark Knopfler – guitars, vocals • John Illsley – bass, vocals • Alan Clark – piano, Hammond organ • Guy Fletcher – Yamaha DX1 synthesizer, Synclavier, Roland synthesizers, • Jack Sonni – guitar synth on "The Man's Too Strong" Additional musicians • Michael Brecker – saxophone on "Your Latest Trick" • Tony Levin – Chapman Stick on "Why Worry" • Jimmy Maelen – shaker and tambourine • Mike Mainieri – vibes on "Why Worry" • Dave Plews – trumpet on "Ride Across the River" • Sting – vocals on "Money for Nothing" Production • Mark Knopfler – producer • Neil Dorfsman – producer, engineer, mixing • Dave Greenberg – assistant engineer • Steve Jackson – assistant engineer • Bruce Lampcov – assistant engineer • Bob Ludwig – mastering at Masterdisk (New York City, New York, USA) • John Dent – mastering at The Sound Clinic (London, UK) • Thomas Steyer – cover painting • Sutton Cooper – sleeve design • Deborah Feingold – photography ==Charts==

• In the Netherlands, the album broke the all-time record for most weeks on chart, with 269 non-consecutive weeks (since overtaken by Adele's 21 and the Buena Vista Social Club's eponymous debut album). • In the UK, the album spent 14 weeks at number one on the UK Albums Chart, and as of August 2018 has spent 271 weeks on the chart. • In the United States, the album reached number one on the Billboard 200 and remained there for nine weeks. Weekly charts Year-end charts Decade-end charts ==Certifications and sales==