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Love Over Gold
Review
"Love Over Gold", the fourth album by Dire Straits, was released in September, 1982, and was the group's first to top the British chart, holding the Number One position for a month. It eventually spent virtually four years in the UK chart, and was also the first Dire Straits album produced by Mark Knopfler alone - he had been co-producer, with Jimmy Lovine, of the previous LP, "Making Movies", which would ultimately accumulate five years in the UK chart without ever reaching the top 3. At this point in their career, the group were exceedingly popular - it is interesting to recall that when the first Dire Straits single, "Sultans of Swing", was released in may, 1978, the British charts were crammed with pogoing punks and the like, and acts favouring musical expertise over untrained enthusiasm were regarded as dangerously retrogressive. It was ten months before "Sultans" finally reached the UK chart, and we British should feel ashamed that it was a hit in America before we finally got the message. Over four years had passed since that debut, and the group had lost a founder member, guitarist David Knopfler, and gained a replacement, Hal Lindes, as well as expanding into a quintet with the addition of Alan Clark on keyboards. Neigther newcomer had achieved great fame previously: Clark had backed many name acts, including P. J. Proby, The Bachelors, Del Shannon, Lindisfarne and Gallagher & Lyle, while Lindes, a Californian with Russian parents, had also honed his skills mainly on the road rather than in the studio. With John Illsley on bass and Pick Withers on drums behind vocalist/lead/guitarist/songwriter/producer Mark Knopfler, the expanded group was again at full strength following the inevitable trauma of younger brother David Knopfler's departure after "Communique", the group's second LP, - a session musician, Sid McGinnis, had played rhythm guitar on "Making Movies".
The challenge for Mark Knopfler was to maintain progress after a two year gap since the last album - in America, the debut album, "Dire Straits", had outsold both its successors, and there hadn't been a hit single since early 1981. It was rather different in Britain, where "Making Movies" was still in the album chart, and had included three hit singles. Knopfler had also been busy with other things, writing a film score (for "Local Hero", a highly-praised movie produced by David Puttnam), and appearing as a guest star on albums by Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Phil Everly and Steely Dan, but he clearly came up trumps.
Although there are only five tracks on "Love Over Gold", all written by Mark Knopfler, the album runs for over 40 minutes. The shortest track, "Industrial Disease", was released as a single was "Private Investigations", which became their first UK Top 3 hit. The longest track on the UK hit single in 1984, and the group's next album, the double live LP, "Alchemy", which reached the UK Top 3 and stayed in the LP chart for over three years, included live version of both "Telegraph Roas" and "Private Investigations".
The remastered reissue of a classic album can only add to what is already acclaimed as an extraordinay archievement. "Love Over Gold" has never sounded better than this.
