Dire Straits - Making Movies (1980)

Easter holidays and overall spring season as a whole always is very sentimental for me. Even more so than christmas for some reason. Because of that, I often spend long time at my family home during this part of the year, which is why I decided to talk about this specific album today. Dire Straits is a band that always felt like home for me. It's my ultimate comfort music at any time. Partly because its music has been present throughout my whole chilhood and adolescence - my parents both really liked the band. Later, when I began listening to music more consciously, I started noticing how talented of a guitar player Mark Knopfler is, so that's another big reason why I hold this album (and pretty much whole DS discography) especially dear.

"Making Movies" marks a very important point for the band. It's here where they introduced piano and more complex and longer musical arrangements into their limited but powerful musical vocabulary. The songs here feel much less jammy and formless than on the previous releases, but are more conceptual and "broad". They are feel like entire vibrant, lively soundscapes. Nowhere is it more apparent than on the opening track - "Tunnel of Love". This song is simply beautiful. Initialy it's a rocking banger, spiced up with some lovely melodies during the choruses. Then, it transforms into this gorgeous, elaborate guitar solo that flows so naturally and beautifully... It really is one of the most heartfelt guitar parts I've ever heard. The song as a whole and the story told in it is complemented perfectly by Mark's expressive playing.

The next song in the tracklist - "Romeo and Juliet" makes it apparent that the main conceptual motive of this album is love. While this topic kinda is shallow and surface-level, one absolute cannot say that's it is uninspired here. The lyrics tackle so much aspects of romance, love and overall affection of people to each other. "Romeo and Juliet" is another melodic song with prominent piano, but now it's mainly acoustic, with some touches of Mark's famous resonator guitar. What makes this song for me tho is this unbeliveable outro. It's simply phenomenal...

"Skateaway" is a curious little song. It's the one that I'm the least familiar with, since for some reason I've rarely came back to it over the years, even tho the song absolutely deserved it. It's also somewhat of a title track - the line "Making Movies" appears in the song's lyrics. Again, I love the outro here. This two chord loop blends with piano and picky guitar flourishes perfectly.

As a segue between "Skateaway" and "Expresso Love", it's good to talk about the original title track of this album. Probably one of the first songs written for the LP was "Making Movies", which then split into three different songs! (there are some WIP recordings of it available on youtube) The lyrics became what we now know as "Skateaway" and "Twisting by the Pool", but the main riff turned into "Expresso Love" and "Solid Rock". The former is more of a energetic and driving song, probably the strongest in the whole record in that regard. I really enjoy the way that intro is arranged with the piano and how the riff sounds overall. This sound sequence sounds both very sonically interesting and simple enough to be a hard rocking banger of a song. The harmonised guitar solo is also a nice touch that makes the song stand out even more in the tracklist.

Next up is "Hand in Hand", which may be the most overlooked track here. I don't think I've ever heard anyone talk about it and that's a shame since it's one of the cutest and most intimate DS songs. Even tho the lyrics can be somewhat uncanny for me, they're still very sincere, romantic and touching. The vulnerability of the track is amplified by delicate piano and guitar parts that do exactly what they're supposed to do. Another brilliant song about love "Solid Rock" takes us back for one last time into the more hard rocking territory with it's distorted, rock&roll-ish guitar lines and faster tempo. It's a fine song and I like it a lot, but on an album such good, it comes up as a merely "ok" track. Many people might say that the live versions are better, but I think I like the studio recording the most out of all the ones I've heard...

The record finishes off with a controversial "Les Boys". This is probably the least-liked song in Dire Straits' whole discography and tbh I understand why. Some say the song is homophobic, but I haven't ever thought about it that way. Well it is what it is... I don't hate it tho! I never skip it! It's a neat, charming tune to finish off this fabulous record. I can't imagine changing this track up for anything different.

If this album didn't convince you that Mark is one of the most talented songwriters and guitarist ever, I don't know what would do that. Maybe their next album "Love Over Gold", but that one's slightly less accessible and even more proggy. Anyway, "Making Movies" is currently my favorite DS album and one of my all-time favourite records ever released. Like I said, it just feels like home. It's warm, welcoming, sincere and cozy. All the songs feel conceptually and musically well made and masterfully realized. It's rare for an album so monothematic and admitedly limited in it's stylistic approach to channel so much emotion and soul...