Tuesday, December 06, 2005

He Knows All The Chords

The Best of Dire Straits & Mark Knopfler – Private Investigations

Earlier in the year Mark Knopfler's live performance in Christchurch completely blew me away, and I said that I'd make it a priority to get some of his albums. Well eight months later I actually did, getting myself a copy of this best of.

The first disc contains almost all of Dire Straits' hits, such as Sultans of Swing and Money for Nothing. Those songs are indeed classics, but lesser known, moodier tracks included here such as Your Latest Trick, The Telegraph Road and Private Investigations show off Knopfler's true talent as a song writer. The latter two in particular have a strong emotional effect on me. Dire Straits' Love Over Gold is one of the first albums I remember listening to as a kid, and I really loved it. The songs off that album have an effect on me that nothing else can, simply because they're the songs that first awakened a love of music in me.

The second disc has some leftover Dire Straits songs but is mostly Mark Knopfler's solo stuff. I'm not familiar with much of it, but a few of the songs are as good as anything he did with Dire Straits (I particularly like Why Aye Man and Sailing to Philadelphia), and I'm tempted to look into some of his solo albums. Which I guess was the ulterior motive behind the record company releasing this double disc set.

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