Dire Straits - Love Over Gold -------- Masterpiece?

[John72953]

We talk about Miles Davis' " Kind Of Blue" and Brubeck's "Time Out" (to name but two) as Masterpieces, but does Dire Straits' "Love Over Gold" have what it takes to be considered a Masterpiece?

[Phelonious Ponk]

We talk about Miles Davis' " Kind Of Blue" and Brubeck's "Time Out" (to name but two) as Masterpieces, but does Dire Straits' "Telegraph Road" have what it takes to be considered a Masterpiece?

It's certainly a great piece of work. There are other songs by Dire Straits that I like better, but that's just personal taste. Telegraph Road is great songcraft, contains all the signature elements that make Knopfler Knopfler, and is either a beautiful piece of studio recording or over-cooked, completely depending on your POV.

In other words, yeah, it's close enough that if you think of it as a masterpiece I'm sure not going to argue with that.

Tim

[Steve Williams]

I agree John

It is one of my go-to albums for demo especially track #2....Private Conversations

[MylesBAstor]

I agree John

It is one of my go-to albums for demo especially track #2....Private Conversations

Yes it gives you Dire Straits big sound; not quite as big as they present live, but a reasonable facsimile.

Ditto on Steve's comment. Great music, lyrics and special effects

[whart]

Yep, unfortunately at least for me, it fits into that special category of records that got so overplayed back in the day (Tea, Dusty's Look, etc) that I rarely listen to it, even decades later. Occasionally pull it out. HiFi+ once ran a funny piece called 'Records to Die From' (a play on the Stereophile periodic "Records to Die For") which included a list of stuff that got beat into the ground as demo material. The ones I mentioned were on it, along with quite a few others. In fact, in the article, the writer (I forget who wrote the piece) said a customer demanded that a certain one of these be played to demo some system. The salesperson agreed, provided that they would destroy the record afterwards. They apparently kept a melted down copy in the backroom and brought it out afterwards to show the customer that they meant business. Well worth digging for the article. It was quite funny.

[whart]

Yes it gives you Dire Straits big sound; not quite as big as they present live, but a reasonable facsimile.

Ditto on Steve's comment. Great music, lyrics and special effects

Knopfler's soundtrack to that movie about the small Irish or Scottish town that was resisting some big corporate project (Local Hero?) was also wonderful as I remember. I haven't listened to it in years. I'll have to pull it out.

[John72953]

I agree John

It is one of my go-to albums for demo especially track #2....Private Conversations

I feel so stupid, I actually meant to write LOVE OVER GOLD. Can you change the thread title for me?

[FrantzM]

I feel so stupid, I actually meant to write LOVE OVER GOLD. Can you change the thread title for me?

:0 I do not think of Telegraph as a masterpiece either, good but .. Favorite DS album is Brothers In Arms... ot it could well be On Every Street... Seems most of Dire Straits albums are Sonic gems by the way and Live , I have never heard a cleaner sound in concert.... never..

[treitz3]

Well, John....I wouldn't consider Love over Gold as a masterpiece but the Live concert that is unobtainable at the moment from Bergen that just so happens to feature very close to a 16 minute version of Telegraph Road I would definitely consider a masterpiece! I love that album. In fact, I listened to it in it's entirety, not once but twice yesterday. I'll have to spin Love Over Gold today and see if I would reconsider. It has been a while since I put that one in.

Here's a thread about the concert I'm talking about >>> http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showth...udio-must-have

Tom

[John72953]

Interesting comments so far. Of course its all subjective.

So none of you think that this should be mentioned in the same breath as KOB and TO?