Brothers in Arms is the fifth studio album by the British rock band Dire Straits, released on 17 May 1985, by Vertigo Records internationally and Warner Bros. Records in the United States. It was the first album in history to sell over one million copies in CD format. The album was produced by bandleader Mark Knopfler and by Neil Dorfsman, who had engineered Dire Straits' 1982 album Love over Gold and Knopfler's 1983 soundtrack album Local Hero.
Brothers in Arms spent a total of 14 non-consecutive weeks at number one on the UK Albums Chart (including ten consecutive weeks between 18 January and 22 March 1986), nine weeks at number one on the Billboard 200 in the United States and 34 weeks at number one on the Australian Albums Chart. It was the first album to be certified ten-times platinum in the UK and is the eighth-best-selling album in UK chart history. It is certified nine-times platinum in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and is one of the world's best-selling albums, having sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. To promote the album, Dire Straits embarked on the Brothers in Arms Tour, which ran from 1985 to 1986.
The album won a Grammy Award in 1986 for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical and Best British Album at the 1987 Brit Awards; the 20th Anniversary reissue won another Grammy in 2006 for Best Surround Sound Album. In 2020, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Brothers in Arms number 418 on its list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Q magazine ranked it number 51 on its list of the "100 Greatest British Albums Ever".
In 2025, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the album’s original release, the album was re-released in several formats, including a five-LP box set and triple CD. This box set included the full studio album as well as a previously unreleased full-length live concert from the band’s Municipal Auditorium, San Antonio show during the world tour.
Recording
Initial recording sessions (and departure of Hal Lindes)
The initial recording sessions for Brothers in Arms took place between 2 November and 21 December 1984 at AIR Studios on the island of Montserrat, a British overseas territory in the Caribbean. Before arriving at Montserrat, Knopfler had written all the songs and rehearsed them with the band; which, at the time of recording, was himself (vocals, guitar), John Illsley (bass, backing vocals), Hal Lindes (guitar), Alan Clark (piano, organ), Terry Williams (drums) and new member Guy Fletcher (synthesisers, backing vocals).
The studio itself was small, with a recording space that offered virtually no isolation. "It was a good-sounding studio," Dorfsman later recalled, "but the main room itself was nothing to write home about. The sound of that studio was the desk," referring to the Neve 8078 board. Knopfler and Dorfsman utilised the main studio's limited space to best effect, placing the drum kit in the far left corner, facing the control room. They placed the piano in a tight booth in the far right corner, miked with AKG C414s. The Hammond B3 was placed nearby, with its Leslie speaker either wedged into the soundproof entryway to the control room or even set up outdoors. Illsley's bass amplifier was recorded inside a small vocal booth with a Neumann FET 47 and a DI unit. Knopfler's amplifiers were miked with 57s, 451s, and Neumann U67s. Fletcher's synths were placed in the control room.
Brothers in Arms was one of the first albums recorded on a Sony 24-track digital tape machine. The decision to move to digital recording came from Knopfler's constant striving for better sound quality. "One of the things that I totally respected about him," Dorfsman observed, "was his interest in technology as a means of improving his music. He was always willing to spend on high-quality equipment." However, they encountered a defective batch of recording tape at AIR Studios, which would result in the loss of part or all of three album tracks.
Hal Lindes left the band early in the sessions. According to Illsley, this was due to social disagreements, with Lindes spending too much time with his girlfriend (and future wife) and not enough with the rest of the band, leading to questions about his commitment. As had been the case with the earlier recording of Making Movies, Knopfler then took on the recording the majority of guitar parts himself.
During the recording of "Money for Nothing", the signature sound of Knopfler's guitar may have been enhanced by a "happy accident" of microphone placement. Knopfler was using his Gibson Les Paul going through a Laney amplifier. While setting up the guitar amplifier microphones in an effort to get the "ZZ Top sound" that Knopfler sought, guitar tech Ron Eve, who was in the control room, heard the "amazing" sound before Dorfsman was finished arranging the mics. "One mic was pointing down at the floor," Dorfsman remembered, "another was not quite on the speaker, another was somewhere else, and it wasn't how I would want to set things up—it was probably just left from the night before, when I'd been preparing things for the next day and had not really finished the setup." What they heard was exactly what ended up on the record; no additional touches were made during the mix.
Issues with drumming (Terry Williams and Omar Hakim); recruitment of Jack Sonni
In December 1984, six weeks into the recording sessions in Montserrat, the drum parts became an issue and Terry Williams was dismissed from the sessions.Terry Williams Interview March 2013 (SoundCloud) (around 1:01:39, 1:02:13-1:03:40) According to a later Sound on Sound magazine interview with Neil Dorfsman, he and Knopfler had decided that Williams' performances were unsuitable for the desired sound and feel of the album. Illsley, however, recalled in 1985 that it was Williams' studio nerves that made it difficult to record the best rhythm tracks as a band. Williams himself, meanwhile, has claimed that he had recorded all his drum parts to a click track, which he felt limited his playing and feel in the studio. While accounts vary, it became clear that the drum parts for the album were not progressing. Williams was promptly replaced in the sessions by jazz and session drummer Omar Hakim, who recorded his drum parts in three days. Hakim recalled that all the album tracks, apart from "Money for Nothing", were re-cut from scratch as a band alongside Knopfler and Illsley.
On the eventual release of the album, both Hakim and Williams were credited with drumming. Williams’ contributions on the album are limited to "Walk of Life" and the improvised drum crescendo at the beginning of "Money for Nothing", with Hakim playing all remaining parts on this and the album's other tracks. According to another interview with Dorfsman, Williams' original toms and tom fills throughout "Money for Nothing" were retained, with Hakim playing the rest of the drum parts. However, Williams was not dismissed from the band: he featured as drummer in all the music videos and throughout the 1985–1986 Brothers in Arms world tour that followed.Strong, M.C. (1998) The Great Rock Discography, p. 207.Ed Bicknell forum comment on Dire Straits' drummer situation in 1985 -posted to A Mark in Time Mark Knopfler fan forum, 27 April 2025
Shortly before Christmas 1984, during a break in the recording schedule, Knopfler approached and recruited Jack Sonni, a New York guitarist and longstanding friend, for the rhythm guitar position vacated by Hal Lindes the previous month. Subsequently, after the Christmas break, a second set of recording sessions took place in Montserrat between 3 January and 6 February 1985. Sting also recorded vocals for "Money for Nothing" during the first week of January, while he was on vacation in Montserrat. Coincidentally, Omar Hakim met Sting for the first time during the "Money For Nothing" session while laying down drum parts, eventually landing the gig as drummer in the latter's backing band for The Dream of the Blue Turtles album and tour.
New York sessions, 1985 (including bass guitar substitutions)
Subsequently, the album sessions relocated to the Power Station in New York in February 1985 for additional overdubs. These included contributions from New York musicians including Michael and Randy Brecker on saxophone and trumpet, Mike Mainieri on tuned percussion (who had previously contributed vibraphone to Love Over Gold) and percussionist Jimmy Maelen, plus trumpeter Dave Plews and Average White Band saxophonist Malcolm Duncan.
When Illsley sprained his wrist after a fall whilst jogging in Central Park, rendering him unable to play, the band hired studio bassists Tony Levin and Neil Jason to complete the bass parts.Dire Straits On Track by Andrew Wild (via Google Books) Neil Jason was brought in for a week's work which included takes on "So Far Away", "Walk of Life", "Ride Across the River", "Your Latest Trick" and "The Man's Too Strong", although the only fully confirmed released results from the Jason sessions were the slap-style funk bassline on "One World" and "slides on my fretless—almost like a Syndrum effect" on the intro to the extended version of "Money for Nothing"."Session Madness: Tales from Inside the Groove" - article by Neil Jason in Bass Magazine, 19 July 2022 Levin contributed bass parts to "Why Worry". Jack Sonni also recorded his only contribution to a Dire Straits album, playing some guitar synthesiser parts on "The Man's Too Strong".
Supporting tour, 1985–1986 Dire Straits began their promotional concert world tour on 25 April 1985 in Split, Croatia (then part of Yugoslavia), with Sonni now a full-time member on rhythm guitar and Williams back on drums.
The tour was phenomenally successful, lasting a whole year and concluding in April 1986, in which the band played a total of 248 concerts in 23 countries and 118 cities. More than two and a half million people attended the tour. This also concluded Jack Sonni's time as a Dire Straits member: he would not be present for the band's very occasional performances during the following two years' hiatus, and was not involved with the next album, On Every Street, or its accompanying world tour.
Composition Brothers in Arms has been described musically as a pop rock album. The music video for "Money for Nothing" received heavy rotation on MTV, and it was the first to be aired on MTV Europe when the network launched on 1 August 1987. It is one of only two Dire Straits songs on a studio album not to be solely credited to Knopfler (the other being "The Carousel Waltz", which opens Making Movies), with guest vocalist Sting given a co-writing credit due to the melody of the repeated "I want my MTV" (sung by Sting) at the start echoing the melody of the Police's "Don't Stand So Close to Me".
"Walk of Life" was a number two hit in the UK Singles Chart in early 1986 and a number seven hit in the US Billboard Hot 100 later that year. The song was nearly left off the album, but was included after the band out-voted producer Neil Dorfsman.
On the second side of the album, three songs ("Ride Across the River", "The Man's Too Strong" and "Brothers in Arms") are lyrically focused on militarism. "Ride Across the River" uses immersive Latin American imagery, accompanied by synthesised pan flute, mariachi trumpet, a reggae-influenced drum part and eerie background noises including synthesized cricket chirps. "The Man's Too Strong" depicts the character of an ancient soldier (or war criminal) and his fear of showing feelings as a weakness. Written during the 1982 Falklands War, "Brothers in Arms" deals with the senselessness of war.
In 2007, the 25th anniversary of the war, Knopfler recorded a new version of the song at Abbey Road Studios to raise funds for British veterans who he said "are still suffering from the effects of that conflict".
Artwork