My Top 20 albums for 1978 No 13

Dire Straits
Year:
1978
Tracklist
Down To The Waterline 3:55
Water Of Love 5:23
Setting Me Up 3:18
Six Blade Knife 4:10
Southbound Again 2:58
Sultans Of Swing 5:47
In The Gallery 6:16
Wild West End 4:42
Lions 5:05

Dire Straits’ debut album is one of their best. It features all of the band’s trademarks, including Knopfler’s clean, melodic guitar fingerpicking, his conversational vocals and literate story-based lyrics, and their chugging rhythm section (John Illsley, bass; Pick Withers, drums). Dire Straits is more minimalist and less slick than later offerings and is all the better for it, and there’s more than a hint of the blues in both Knopfler’s guitar playing and in his often-cynical yet poetic lyrics. “Down To The Waterline” starts things off on a rocking high; I love it when the guitar kicks in after the mellow, mysterious intro, and the band's lockstepped grooves and Knopfler's dazzling solos makes the song a real standout. Also outstanding, if less obviously so, are “Water Of Love,” a relaxed and lonely slide-led blues with wonderful tom tom drum patterns from Pick, and “Wild West End,” an evocative ballad with an easily singable chorus. These melodic songs are mature and confident, never mind that some of the punk snobs who so hated this band back in 1978 would also call them “boring,” a charge that holds up for parts of some of these songs. Of course, those punks also secretly wished that they could play guitar half as well as Knopfler, and his impressive guitar licks ultimately lift each of these songs. Plus, when the band hits their groove-based stride on louder, more up-tempo tunes like “Setting Me Up,” “Southbound Again,” and especially the classic “Sultans of Swing,” the results are hard to argue against, and unlike most albums recorded in 1978 Dire Straits hasn’t aged a day in the intervening years.
Featured Songs:
Down To The Waterline
Sultans of Swing