DS broke up 25 years ago today

[knopfling]

I apologize if this has already been posted, or if it is somehow wrong. I have been away and out of touch. Anyway, this article says MK broke up DS today, Sept. 15.
 http://ultimateclassicrock.com/dire-straits-break-up/

[sweetsurrender]

Knopfling, thanks so much for the article.  Love that picture of Mark.   I wouldn't include Industrial disease, so far away, Walk of life on my top 10 list. 

[Love Expresso]

I remember that day very clearly. I really felt dark and bad (I was only 17 then) and thought about how would I be able to live with never seeing them live!
After all, I had all CDs, and Brothers In Arms was played every day (vinyl version!!)... but somehow there was a part of me not really believing it. The release of the Money For Nothing Best-Of in Oct of that same year was somehow a prove for the band's break-up. By the way Genesis released We Can't Dance the same week and were heavy competiors For the top of the German Album charts which I of course checked every Thursday in my local record shop. Gone long time ago...

 LE

[ds1984]

I never heard then that DS had officialy broken in 1988. In interview Mark was saying that DS were still alive but that he did not know when DS would be back on work.

[Love Expresso]

It was in the news, radio if I remember correctly and MTV news... friends that "already" had cable tv and MTV back in those days were very busy telling me.. of course this says nothing about the quality and value of this "news"...

LE

[xxFordiexx]

Communique " Commercial and critical bomb"? not true in either case... went on to sell over 7million copies in the end and it's my favourite DS album (if someone forced me to choose with a gun to my head) 

Granted it was one of their lowest selling albums but compare that to other bands and artists... they'd love to sell that many records. 

[Love Expresso]

Didn't know that. 7 Million. Not sure if MK sells so many of his solo albums these days - altogether...

LE

[nababo]

Didn't know that. 7 Million. Not sure if MK sells so many of his solo albums these days - altogether...

LE

According to Wikipedia, which quotes two sources, Sailing to Philadelphia has sold 3.5 million copies by 2002. Once I've read, can't remind where, that Golden heart had the same amount of sales a couple of years after releasing. So...

[sweetsurrender]

Communique " Commercial and critical bomb"? not true in either case... went on to sell over 7million copies in the end and it's my favourite DS album (if someone forced me to choose with a gun to my head) 

Granted it was one of their lowest selling albums but compare that to other bands and artists... they'd love to sell that many records. 

My favorite DS album also. Love where do you think you are going?

[dmg]

Communique has always been an album difficult to rate for me somehow because the songs are better than the whole IMO and that's where it falls down and comes lower on people's lists.  When I'm asked, I never really rate it as one of my favourites (although it's always hard to choose) but when I take my time and think of all the great songs I like that are on the album I begin to wonder why I rated it so low.  Perhaps it finishes a little weak and I've never been overly fond of News or the title track that much (although if he were to write songs like this today I'd be thrilled to bits) but whatever the reason, the sum of the parts is better than the whole you could say.

[vgonis]

I was surprised to read about the 25 years after break up, but after I read the article I realised it was about the 1988 break up. His statement was, I really don't think we'll make another record, I don't even have time to think about it. So not really a definite break up, but since DS were hot, a statement like this couldn't go un-over-blown.

I still have the Greek article somewhere (I originally read it a in 1989, when I started looking about DS), and I felt like LE, because I was too young and had never seen them live. I thought, now that I found them they had to split? 

Anyway, Communique is a fine album and probably my favourite. Not a filler there. (have my doubts about the title song) And Single handed sailor must be the earliest memory of a DS song I have.

[Love Expresso]

I was too young and had never seen them live. I thought, now that I found them they had to split? 

My feelings exactly! 

LE

[JF]

I had the same feelings at the time (discovered DS around 87-88),

but on the other hand, I think that DS would have obtained a more "cult" status if they really broke up after BIA. The oes "come back" didn't serve the band, in term of musical aura, IMHO. I think it confirmed "the commercial image" of the band in many people's minds.

when i saw the mandela gig, I found that it was a kind of farewell concert, and I think that if it would have been the case DS would have ended with a more "respectable" status (I mean in term of rock crtics, etc...) rarher than the laborious split somewhere in 93...

BIA should have been the last DS album, and OES the first MKsolo album IMHO.

then maybe, the overall public's thinking about DS would be different...but of course it's just speculation

just my 2 cents

[vgonis]

JF you have said this before and I tend to agree. My only problem being that if it stands for OES, it might as well stand for BiA, or even at LOG. I mean the change in sound was huge from record to record (even MM)  and BiA was a huge leap from the old straits. After all it is all MK and his decision to be under a band name or solo. After all BiA has many admirers and many unbelievers. No matter what we believe, BiA has all these elements that put it up there with other musicians of the 80ies that we have doubts today, like Genesis, Phil Collins etc. And the large exposure has much to do with it. Not the sales, but the way it was introduced attached to a new format, a new product. (and the unfairness of the extended versions in CD)

[JF]

I agree with you vgonis, but BIA was in the chronoligical contunarity, I may say, I mean there wan't a big gap between alchemy and BIA, like it was between BIA and OES. And this gap was full of other contributions/projects, mainly Atkins and Hillbillies which obviously influenced a lot the music on OES, while I wouldn't say that local hero and Cal influenced that much BIA.

it's maybe only psychlogical, but I hear a "gradual" progression from the first album to BIA, while OES appears to be an "outsider" in the disocgraphy, but my point of view is maybe distorted by the release dates I may say.

the resaon is because I discovered DS in 87-88, so I listened a lot to their "entire" discography (at the time), during 88-91 ; and then another album was added, and I always had difficulty to include it really in the collection I listened for years....
to me it feels like the "come back" album, more than the "next" album after BIA