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Author Topic: Anyone else confused by the Shangri-La album?  (Read 8316 times)

Offlinedustyvalentino

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Re: Anyone else confused by the Shangri-La album?
« Reply #15 on: October 09, 2010, 12:24:13 PM »
Until Get Lucky Shangri La was my favourite MK solo album and it's one of my all time favourite albums. The only slightly low spots for me are Boom Like That, Don't Crash the Ambulance and the repetitive nature of Sonny Liston on the album.
"You can't polish a doo-doo" - Mark Knopfler

Rollergirl

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Re: Anyone else confused by the Shangri-La album?
« Reply #16 on: October 09, 2010, 02:09:09 PM »
not confused either, like Dusty, it's my favourite after Get Lucky.

OfflinePottel

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Re: Anyone else confused by the Shangri-La album?
« Reply #17 on: October 09, 2010, 04:30:39 PM »
always liked it lots.
postcards sooooo rules, but i also like the ambulancem, woop de doo and so on, the only one i don't much care for must be....our shangri la.
oh man, just looked at the cd again, tupelo boy oh boy....or sucker row, beuatiful, a great record imho...
any Knopfler, Floyd or Dylan will do....

Offlinesweetsurrender

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Re: Anyone else confused by the Shangri-La album?
« Reply #18 on: October 10, 2010, 08:10:36 AM »
Not my all time favorite, but I LOVEEEEEE  Postcard veryyyyy much.  The tunes to this song is so outstanding, it's hard not to love it. 

OfflineJules

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Re: Anyone else confused by the Shangri-La album?
« Reply #19 on: October 19, 2010, 10:47:49 AM »
Actually the MK
So Long

Offlinedustyvalentino

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Re: Anyone else confused by the Shangri-La album?
« Reply #20 on: October 19, 2010, 10:58:52 AM »
"You can't polish a doo-doo" - Mark Knopfler

OfflineJules

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Re: Anyone else confused by the Shangri-La album?
« Reply #21 on: October 19, 2010, 11:05:24 AM »

As an album, Sailing doesn't work, but it's still a great collection of songs. :) Whereas Kill To Get Crimson has a real feel running right through it, but the songs just aren't as good as any of the other albums (IMO).

But this is what makes KTGC work as an album, and it makes it very nice to listen, at least to me  :)
So Long

Offlinedustyvalentino

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Re: Anyone else confused by the Shangri-La album?
« Reply #22 on: October 19, 2010, 03:29:45 PM »
But this is what makes KTGC work as an album, and it makes it very nice to listen, at least to me  :)

Yeah, the production and "theme" of the album are fine, the siongs just fall well below MK's normal standards.
"You can't polish a doo-doo" - Mark Knopfler

Love Expresso

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Re: Anyone else confused by the Shangri-La album?
« Reply #23 on: October 19, 2010, 08:53:19 PM »

As an album, Sailing doesn't work, 

I have to disagree very clearly!  :lol

LE

Offlineholaknopfler

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Re: Anyone else confused by the Shangri-La album?
« Reply #24 on: October 19, 2010, 10:36:54 PM »
KTGC is my favourite album of Marks solo work, beautiful stuff.
If i was a Fender guitar, Fender painted red...

OfflineMillionaire Blues

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Re: Anyone else confused by the Shangri-La album?
« Reply #25 on: October 19, 2010, 10:44:12 PM »
Kill to get Crimson is probs my fav knopfler album...so relaxing!!!! Cant put my finger on why i love it so much.....

 :lol

Offlinedustyvalentino

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Re: Anyone else confused by the Shangri-La album?
« Reply #26 on: October 19, 2010, 11:25:52 PM »

As an album, Sailing doesn't work, 

I have to disagree very clearly!  :lol

LE

Each to their own. To me, a great album needs to be an experience in itself. Sailing to Philadelphia is a collection of great songs, and a therefore a good listen for sure, but no way does it hang together thematically like the first album or Making Movies.
"You can't polish a doo-doo" - Mark Knopfler

Love Expresso

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Re: Anyone else confused by the Shangri-La album?
« Reply #27 on: October 20, 2010, 08:05:56 AM »
Of course everybody on his own, I would never try to coax, but for me it HAS a beautiful theme: it is the story of what Mark often told us, how the music came from the Tyne, going to America and coming back... And of course it is all meant musically, this record is really putting it into geography: It starts in Edinburgh, than we are really travelling with M&D across the ocean... El Macho is the south of America, Wanderlust is the theme itself, Speedway is starting as a little bluegrass and shows the development of the music, especially the second half of the album is breathtakingly americana, great atmospheric album-vibes from track 8 to 11, and it all ends again in Leeds, in the past... Travel, horizon, endurance, sun, dust ..
Oh, I could talk about this album for ages.

But to get back to topic: Shangri-La has an overall theme, too, let's call it "vision" and "dreams", how they come up, how they develop and how they are destroyed, so this album, too, has a theme. But these themes are more expressed  by lyrics than by music, whereas the first two Dire Straits albums had more real musical character and "theme".

Whereas "The Ragpicker's Dream"'s theme is "Home". That is what the dream is. And almost every song is about home, about not having it, having to leave it for different reasons (WAM, DGTK), remembering the home in the past (A place where...), do not want to leave it (FTWN, YDKYB). And the
title track itself really shows us the idea in a very almost "cheesy" way: looking through a window on Christmas Eve through the eyes of a rover...


LE


Offlinedustyvalentino

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Re: Anyone else confused by the Shangri-La album?
« Reply #28 on: October 20, 2010, 03:46:13 PM »
I don't mean a lyrical theme, it's a musical theme, Sailing to Philadelphia is too disjointed musically with all sorts of different styles going on.
"You can't polish a doo-doo" - Mark Knopfler

Love Expresso

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Re: Anyone else confused by the Shangri-La album?
« Reply #29 on: October 20, 2010, 04:07:09 PM »
That's right!

LE

 

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