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Dire Straits' biggest album is getting expanded for its 40th anniversary. 1985's Brothers in Arms will be available in a variety of formats, including a 3CD or 5LP set that pairs the classic album with a live show from the period. The album, which featured two of the band's biggest singles including the American chart-topper "Money for Nothing" and "Walk of Life," will also feature 16 pages of liner notes offering new insight on the album through interviews with the band's frontman/guitarist Mark Knopfler, keyboardist Guy Fletcher and bassist John Illsley. (Among other formats, the album's original vinyl edition, featuring edited versions of nearly every track on the album's first side, will be reissued for the first time since its original release.)
The band's penultimate album was one of their most technically precise: initial tracking took place at AIR Studios on the island of Montserrat, with Knopfler (co-producing with Neil Dorfsman), Illsley, Fletcher, keyboardist Alan Clark and drummer Terry Williams. (Additional members were sloughed off during the period: second guitarist Hal Lindes left early in the sessions; a friend of Knopfler's, Jack Sonni, added a guitar synth part on album cut "The Man's Too Strong"; and most of Williams' work was eventually replaced by jazz/session player Omar Hakim. Other session work included horn solos on "Your Latest Trick" by Michael and Randy Brecker.)
Brothers in Arms' impeccably clean digital recording and sonic palette made it a must for burgeoning CD collectors, where several of the tracks were longer than they appeared on vinyl; it became the first album to sell a million copies on that format. Lead single "Money for Nothing," a biting critique of music video culture with a vocal cameo from Sting - who received co-writing credit for singing "I want my MTV" as a hook to the tune of The Police's "Don't Stand So Close to Me" - was ironically promoted with a heavy-rotation video featuring then-state-of-the-art computer graphics. (It became the first to air on MTV when the station launched in Europe that year.) "Money for Nothing" topped the Billboard Hot 100 that summer, while the rollicking, keyboard-driven "Walk of Life" was a Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic.
Despite a fair amount of negative reviews from the U.K. music press, Brothers in Arms was a smash, topping the album charts for 14 total weeks in England, nine in America and a whopping 34 in Australia. (Due to its chart longevity, it was actually nominated for a BRIT Award for Best British albums two years in a row, winning in 1987.) Knopfler, who won acclaim for his score to The Princess Bride in 1987, would dissolve the group in 1988 to focus more on solo projects, though he reconvened them for one more album and tour in 1991. (He and Fletcher also performed on "Weird Al" Yankovic's 1989 parody of "Money for Nothing," which adapted the lyrics to the theme to The Beverly Hillbillies to the track.)
The Brothers in Arms reissue comes out May 16 in Europe from UMR, nearly exactly 40 years to the date of its original release. (It's not yet clear if Warner Music Group, custodians of the Dire Straits catalogue in America, will release it here.) Pre-order it and check out the track list below; as an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
Brothers in Arms (40th Anniversary Edition) (Mercury/UMR (U.K.), 2025)
3CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
5LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
1LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
CD 1/LP 1-2: Original album (released as Vertigo VERH 25 (U.K.)/Warner Bros. 25264 (U.S.), 1985)
- So Far Away
- Money for Nothing
- Walk of Life
- Your Latest Trick
- Why Worry
- Ride Across the River
- The Man's Too Strong
- One World
- Brothers in Arms
CD 2-3/LP 3-5: Live at the Majestic Theatre, San Antonio, TX - 8/16/1985
- Ride Across the River
- Expresso Love
- One World
- Romeo and Juliet
- Private Investigations
- Sultans of Swing
- Why Worry
- Walk of Life
- Two Young Lovers
- Money for Nothing
- Wild West End
- Tunnel of Love
- Brothers in Arms
- Solid Rock
- Going Home
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There will also be a Blu-ray version with five versions of the album, but no live tracks.
Great album..and there's a limited dolby atmos bluray available from superdeluxeedition. I've got the sacd but the draw of a new surround mix is too much..
So I assume that this version will not be the same as that box set of a few years ago where all that was done was slap the CDs into a fancy box? The original CD stills sounds phenomenal even today.
I'll pass on this release. Along with mega-sellers Bruce Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. and the Police's Synchronicity, Brothers in Arms was played ad nauseam throughout the 1980s and beyond. If I never hear "Money for Nothing" again, it would be too soon. Brothers in Arms is not an album I return to very often. The '80s production is too clinical, antiseptic for my tastes. Truthfully, I prefer the band's 1980 cinematic release, Making Movies, or its organic eponymous debut from 1978.
As deluxe editions go, this latest version of Brothers in Arms is poorly curated. All you get is an unreleased live concert and a 16-page booklet. It would have been more enticing to purchase this 40th-anniversary edition if there was a disc of, say, alternative versions, demos and unreleased songs from those sessions. A hard-bound coffee-table-sized book with unpublished photos and in-depth reminiscences by band members about recording the album would have complemented the overall presentation. Perhaps the 50th-anniversary edition in 10 years time will offer more goodies for devoted Dire Straits fans.
Part of the 8/16/1985 San Antonio show was originally an FM broadcast on tape as part of The King Biscuit Flower. The next night's 8/17 show in Houston was broadcast live in real time and complete across the US on FM radio. I was disappointed that neither of these or any 1985 shows were included in the Dire Straits Live 1978-1992 box set but this new release will remedy that. I intend to buy the UK import CD set primarily for the live stuff which I expect to sound fantastic.
My CD copy arrived from the UK yesterday. The San Antonio Live In 85 concert sounds great and as previously mentioned, was originally recorded for the King Biscuit Flower Hour in 1985. The mix is crisp and clear, much better than the FM broadcast as one would expect. The San Antonio show was recorded in a venue with less than 2000 seats at a time when Dire Straits was already playing arenas and stadiums. (they were a hot act at Live Aid in London a month prior to this Texas show)