Dire Straits cover

Dire Straits

Released

Knopfler is as naturally gifted a guitarist as I’ve ever heard, with a particular take on fingerpicking and the blues that doesn’t line up with anyone outside Senegal. His songwriting is a post-Boz Scaggs hipster variety of cynicism, which somehow ends up triangulating Television and Steely Dan. How did he do that? And what did Knopfler really want to do at the end of the day? Before he drifted into monied whimpering and barroom bloviating, he made this crystalline album that sounds to me like Very Awake Tom Verlaine or Tom Waits aerobicizing. The playing is a plastic, electrical thrill. There are few musicians I enjoy as much and understand less.

Sasha Frere-Jones

Recommended by

Suggestions
Benjamin Booker cover

Benjamin Booker

Benjamin Booker
Western Stars cover

Western Stars

Bruce Springsteen
Strut cover

Strut

Lenny Kravitz
Letter To You cover

Letter To You

Bruce Springsteen
Revelation cover

Revelation

Los Lonely Boys
The Basement Tapes cover

The Basement Tapes

Bob Dylan, The Band
Gaucho cover

Gaucho

Steely Dan
Life Journey cover

Life Journey

Leon Russell