The band:
- Broken Base: Fans seem to have trouble agreeing on which albums were the best. To some, it's everything prior to or up to Love Over Gold, to others it's Love Over Gold and forward.
- Covered Up:
- Highway 101 covered "Setting Me Up" from their debut album.
- Two tracks off On Every Street also got country music covers: "The Bug" by Mary Chapin Carpenter, and "When It Comes to You" by John Anderson.
- Critical Dissonance: Critical responses to Communiqué and On Every Street were decidedly tepid due to the albums' inability to effectively follow up the band's self-titled debut and Brothers in Arms, respectively; while fans agree that they rank noticeably below Dire Straits' other four albums, they still regard them as good, worthwhile albums in their own right.
- Dancing Bear: "Money for Nothing" initially gained a surge in popularity due to being the first song to have its music video be animated entirely in 3D. While the song itself still enjoys a dedicated following due to being genuinely good, most people tend to remember it as a hallmark in music video history for pioneering such a gimmick.
- Epic Riff:
- One of the band's hallmarks are Knopfler's guitar riffs, but "Money for Nothing" and "Sultans of Swing" particularly stand out. "Walk of Life" is also known for its distinctive synth riff.
- It has lost its broad recognition, but "Your Latest Trick" maintains its rep among saxophone enthusiasts. Knopfler has had music store owners tell him that the song is played to test saxes as much as "Stairway to Heaven" is played to test guitars.
- Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
- They were quite popular in the UK, their home country, and the US, but generally considered a cult band these days. However, they were and remain massively popular in Eastern Europe. They even got their own East German compilation. They were tolerated by the authorities because their music was not seen as rebellious.
- They were also ridiculously popular in Israel, and in 1985 they were in fact the first non-Israeli rock band to ever perform in a large venue (park or stadium) in Israel. When they landed they got a reception normally reserved for first-tier pop artists complete with groupies and screaming fans, which was probably baffling for the mild mannered English boys.
- The band were extremely popular among the Tuareg, a nomadic people in Northern Africa, to the point where they've been credited with introducing Western rock music to the community and inspiring a wave of Tuareg rock bands
- One-Scene Wonder: Sting's guest appearance in "Money for Nothing".
- Signature Song: Overall in order of popularity: "Sultans of Swing", "Walk of Life", "Money for Nothing", "Romeo and Juliet" and "Brothers in Arms". By album:
- Dire Straits: "Sultans of Swing". Another appreciated track is "Down to the Waterline".
- Communiqué: "Lady Writer", although it wasn't played live very often by the band and never was played by Knopfler himself during his solo career; the song that remained a live staple is "Once Upon a Time in the West", which is also notable since it was extented to 13 minutes, making it an example of Epic Rocking. Well-known is also "Where Do You Think You're Going".
- Making Movies: "Romeo and Juliet" especially, but also "Tunnel of Love". The former is also the song that Knopfler played more often in his concerts overall, while "Tunnel of Love" was a staple for Dire Straits but was played live for the last time in 1993, so Knopfler never played it live as a solo artist. note
- Love Over Gold: "Private Investigations". Also the Title Track and "Telegraph Road" are well-known; the former has become pretty popular since the live version from Alchemy was a minor hit, while the latter has pretty much become Dire Straits' quintessential album track and a staple of Epic Rocking, and is the only track on the album which survived in Knopfler's solo live set.
- Brothers in Arms: the title track, "Money for Nothing", "Walk of Life" and not too far behind "So Far Away", although also "Your Latest Trick" is well-remembered.
- On Every Street: the title track and "Calling Elvis". "Heavy Fuel" is also a reasonably well-known hit.
- For Mark Knopfler's solo career, it's either "What It Is" or the theme from "Local Hero".
- Sophomore Slump: Somewhat. Communiqué is more laidback and less commercial than their first album - with the only single being "Lady Writer" (which, while popular, wasn't as much of a hit as "Sultans of Swing"). It wasn't nearly as commercially or critically successful as its predecessor, and many people were unaware it existed until the remastered CDs were released. The album has quite a cult following due to its obscurity.
- Tear Jerker:
- "Brothers in Arms", sung from the point of view of a dying solder.
- "Telegraph Road" has its moments too, being a melancholy retrospective on the rise and fall of British industry (and American, given the title comes from a Michigan highway).Well, I'd sooner forget, but I remember those nights
Yeah, life was just a bet on a race between the lights
You had your head on my shoulder; you had your hand in my hair
Now you act a little colder, like you don't seem to care - "Romeo and Juliet" also.
- "On Every Street." The guy is looking for a lost love and becoming increasingly desperate, with lines like "there's gotta be a record of you somewhere."
- "Tunnel of Love" tells the story of two Star-Crossed Lovers who meet at a carnival and have the time of their life, only for the girl to become separated from the guy, leading to him thinking about trying to find her:I could have caught up with her easy enough
But something must have made me stay.
- Tough Act to Follow: "Brothers In Arms" proved so wildly popular — including its status as a Killer App for the CD player — that not much could top it.
- Values Dissonance: "Money for Nothing" suffers a bit of this. Casually referring to someone as a "faggot" — whether they are homosexual or not — is, at bare minimum, frowned upon in the 21st century. Fortunately, the offending verse is easily removed, and the full song still pushes eight minutes without it. That being said, although intended as an insult by the subject who is saying it, it's still ironically empowering, as it recognizes the diversity of pop stars who were beginning to find fame and fortune in the MTV era. And interestingly, because of the context of how the slur is being said (i.e. from the view of a bigot who Mark Knopfler overheard demeaning his line of work), some stations still play it unedited anyways.That little faggot's got his own jet airplane
That little faggot, he's a millionaire!
