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Article: Arts: Pop: Off the Straits and narrow As well as giving up the cigarettes, Mark Knopfler has had his fill of playing giant stadiums with that icon of Eighties excess, Dire Straits. His new solo album even has a song inspired by a Thomas Pynchon novel and, as he tells Patrick Humphries, he's a better person for it
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- September 22, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2000 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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This week, same as last week, same as the week before, and the
week before that... Dire Straits' 1985 album Brothers in Arms will
sell its customary 1,000 copies in Britain alone. From the start, it
was one of those albums that sold by the skip-load to people who
don't usually buy albums, so - 15 years on - can there be anyone left
who doesn't own a copy of this soundtrack to red-braced Thatcherism,
this CD-defining album?
Dire Straits burst out of Deptford during the saliva-soaked summer
of punk, but the band always had more in common with the pub rockers -
more Ducks De Luxe than The Clash. In that age of three-minute-
heroes and bondage- trousered vandals, Mark Knopfler was a bona fide, ...