The LIsten-Love Over Gold

Dire Straits
Love Over Gold (1982)
Gripped At:
Antone's, 9*30*10

I'm going to say something bold here, and admit that I am a little underwhelmed by this fucking Dire Straits album. I feel kinda silly for expecting it to be really awesome. After hearing "Romeo & Juliet," and knowing how good "Walk of Life" and "Sultans of Swing" are, I thought maybe a band with really killer albums was hiding in plain sight. If they have 'em, this one ain't it. 

Love Over Gold is an album that tries to sound important, but we never get a reason to care. Opener "Telegraph Road" starts strong, with a nice moody build at the outset. Then it dies down to almost nothing. Then it builds up. Then it quiets down. Then it builds up. Like most of the album, this song seems to kill its own momentum repeatedly. It's not bad, and it has strong guitar work, but it's not as good as it needs to be. If an album opens with a fourteen minute song, it should to be a damn good one. 

The band reaches for high drama again immediately with "Private Investigations," which sounds like original music for something on the USA Network circa 1995. We find out that digging for dirt on a lover is painful, but we don't feel anything about what was learned. The song doesn't go into detail and the rest of the album doesn't provide any outside material to lend any meaning to this song's vague musings. Lots of music on this album is very heavy and serious, but the lyrics rarely earn the band that heftiness. They are counting on a certain mood to hold the album up, but when the lyrics don't get us anywhere, it ends up just being decent lyrics over okay, melodramatic 80s rock. I love this kind of cheeseball music when it taps into convincing emotion, but most of this album just falls flat. 

Then things get seriously shitty for like six minutes. Side two opens with "Industrial Disease," and this song just blows. This is the up tempo pop number in the set, which the album doesn't need at all. It is anchored on a grating, awful organ line that seems to skree to infinity. Mark Knopfler aims for a humorous take on the mundane horrors of modem life. Have you ever heard any really, really bad 80s Lou Reed? That is exactly what this song ends up sounding like. It goes on and on, and just keeps sucking and sucking. At one point he sings a verse in some character's goofy voice. The jokes in this song fail, and the insights are shallow and pointless. Nothing is "I feel you brother," and nothing is funny. And then after every dull verse/chorus chunk (Dylan song structure) comes that wretched organ refrain, NEE NEE NEENEE NEE NEENEE…

The title track follows. It is the best song here, and the second shortest. It has the same momentum problems as "Telegraph Road" did, but has a really good chorus, and manages to find the right connect between music and lyrics, actually establishing the mood most of the album goes for. It is good and then gone, and then we're at the pretty-okay closer "It Never Rains". Like "Telegraph Road," this song is not bad, but it is not nearly as good as it could and should be. It has a really great chorus which it only uses once, and the rest of the time relies on a build-up riff that has no payoff. Then the song peters out with a few minutes of sub-par rocking and the album is done. It feels like this song is going for dramatic denouement, but we really aren't coming down from anything. The album never find a way to be engaging for long, and after seven songs that never feel developed it is finished and that's that. And after all the moodiness and intensity it goes for, what sticks with me? The hook from the out-of-place pop jam. NEE NEE NEENEE NEE NEENEE…

My Listening Notes:

Telegraph Road

12:32

Starts will cool spooky noises. I like cook spooky noises. 

12:33 

High Drama.

12:34

Knapfler kicks in. Good start. Cool intro into a sort of faux-Springsteen thing.

Singin bout homesteaders.

12:35

Nice rock groove. Guitar is a little soft-core sounding. 

12:36

Lots of parts but a steady momentum. Sort of a BIGlittleBIGlittle dynamic, but not overwhelming. Cool solo. 

12:37

People work in factories. The road gets bigger and bigger with time. Now we drop into super dramatic piano part. Music heftier than lyrics.

12:38

Second solo, which is kind of what you're hoping for with Knofpler. Dude plays kind of a corn ball guitar but plays it exactly right.

This song kind of reminds me of Hotel California, but not too bad. Also kinda sounds like some weird bizzaro wilco. 

12:42

Song drops out and comes back a lot. Maybe a little too much. Keeps kinda sounding like it's starting back over. The lyrics still don't have the heft they're going for.  Better for a long song to feel too short than too long, but this song kind of always feels like it's just getting started.

12:43

The jam is pretty good. 

12:46

It's cool to start an album with a  big rocker like this.

Private Investigations

12:46

This song also starts out with spooky sounds. More cheese guitar.

12:47

Knopfler's singing sounds kinda like Michael Caroli on this one.

12:49

Song about snooping on lovers. Turns out it's a lose-lose.

12:50

Really trying to sell this one on the vocals. 

Marimba? Hell yes.

12:51

Quiet vs. Loud is the general idea here.

But mostly just quiet.

12:52

It's fading out, but it doesn't seem like anything really happened. Besides marimba.

Industrial Disease

12:53

This one sounds like the hits.

Pretty sure that is the "Rock Organ" setting on a cassio

12:54

This sounds like 80s Lou Reed. But the bad 80s Lou Reed, not the good stuff.

12:55

"Naw man, it's about the world, but like….today"

The keyboard refrain on this song really blows.

12:56

There's a part where he's in character as some doctor and it sucks.

12:57

This song is really annoying. There's no good guitar, the lyrics are bad, and that NEE NEE NEE NEE keyboard is supposed to be the hook. It works on Walk of Life, but not here.

Love Over Gold

12:59

Back to the melodrama. Thought some uptempo pop would be a nice change of pace, but they blew it. The drama was working better. Let's see how it goes this time around. 

Beginning is promising. 

1:01

Good Chorus. But it's private dancer. Which one was first? Either way it works

1:02

Again it's all about the stop-start thing. I don't like that for the momentum of the whole thing.

Acoustic solo.

1:03

This part kind of sounds like Prefab Srpout. It's good. More marimba. Cool bass. 

It Never Rains

1:05

Serious Bob James intro. In the good way. Somewhere between Bob James and Sim City.

1:06

I like it any time a song uses he phrase "for to"

1:07

This song sounds like it's going for denouement , but there was nothing much before it to come down from.

Some build goin on. 

1:08

Fist pumpage. Best part of album.

1:09

Back to the build riff. We never get the big payoff fist pump chorus again.

1:11

Yawner outro