Dire Straits: Brothers in Arms (2LP, 45rpm) [MOBILE FIDELITY]

Why you'll love it

Mobile Fidelity spreads the album over two 180g LPs at 45 RPM, in a numbered limited edition with a gatefold jacket. Brothers in Arms spent nine weeks at No. 1 in the U.S. and has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Cut at 45 RPM
• 180g vinyl
• Numbered limited edition
• Gatefold jacket
• Mastered from the original master tapes
• Remastered
• Pressed in the USA

About the album

Mark Knopfler wrote every song before the band ever set foot on Montserrat, and then rehearsed them all, which may explain why Brothers in Arms sounds so completely sure of itself. Sessions began at AIR Studios on the Caribbean island in November 1984, with Knopfler co-producing alongside Neil Dorfsman, who had engineered Love over Gold and Knopfler's Local Hero score.

"Money for Nothing" is the one everybody knows, that grinding guitar riff and Sting singing the hook, but the album is richer than its biggest hit. "So Far Away" and "Walk of Life" swing easily, "Your Latest Trick" drifts in on late-night saxophone, and "Ride Across the River" and the title track close things on a slow, haunted note that still raises the hair on your arms. Knopfler's guitar tone throughout is a lesson in saying more with fewer notes.

It won the Grammy for Best Engineered Album and Best British Album at the Brits, and it was the first album to sell a million copies on CD. This one is decidedly not a CD, and we'd like that noted as progress.

Also at Kops: more Dire Straits on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab / Warner (cat# MFSL 2-441), a reissue of the 1985 album.