Dire Straits: Communiqué [HIP-O RECORDS]

Why you'll love it

This remastered stereo LP was pressed in the Czech Republic. Communiqué hit No. 1 in Germany, Spain, New Zealand and Sweden and No. 5 in the UK, and went platinum in Britain.

This edition

• Remastered
• Stereo
• Pressed in the Czech Republic

About the album

Dire Straits finished their first tour in Hitchin in November 1978 and were in the Bahamas recording the follow-up barely ten days later. The sessions ran at Compass Point Studios in Nassau, with the mix done in January at Muscle Shoals Sound in Alabama.

Producers Jerry Wexler and Barry Beckett, two veterans of the Muscle Shoals scene, gave Mark Knopfler's songs a relaxed, late-night polish, and Beckett (credited as B. Bear) added keyboards on several tracks. "Once Upon A Time In The West" opens with a slow, sly groove, "News" and the title track simmer along, and "Lady Writer" picks up the tempo with the kind of bright, fingerpicked Stratocaster lines that made Knopfler famous. Side B rolls through "Angel Of Mercy," the London-set "Portobello Belle" and "Single-handed Sailor" before "Follow Me Home" drifts out on a long, atmospheric fade. It was the last record with the original four-piece, brothers Mark and David Knopfler alongside John Illsley and Pick Withers.

It entered the German chart at No. 1 while the debut was still sitting at No. 3, which is the kind of sibling rivalry most bands would happily take. The rest of us just squabble over the shop stereo.

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

Tracklist

Listen

On Vertigo / Mercury (cat# 3752904), a reissue of the 1979 album.