But the precision never makes it feel glossy or shapeless: Withers lives up to any drummer's hope by playing for the song always, but there are so many examples where he gets to shine. His drumming is sympathetic, it's interesting, it's dynamic, thoughtful. It is, in that sense, as much as anything can be, its own sound. You can earmark Chet Atkins, you can point to skiffle, rockabilly and folk, to a youth spent devouring some jazz and blues - but there's no one sound that informs this record.
![play six blade knife dire straits album version play six blade knife dire straits album version](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/inUWYHrdZlk/hqdefault.jpg)
Cale's warble (both in the guitar playing and the vocal delivery) but there's no one artist who is evoked, no one record or even genre that is the constant reference point, that had to have happened so that Mark Knopfler could form Dire Straits and release the album Dire Straits. He's got some Albert Lee-isms to his playing, he's got some blues-derived lyrical phrases (both in his guitar playing and his actual lyrics) and he's got some of J.J. It's a fully formed sound/style that is almost without antecedent - certainly there's no one sound that Mark Knopfler was aping.
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Then there's the jagged riffing of Setting Me Up with a jazzy underlay of drums - it's identifiably Dire Straits but where did it all come from? It's such a sophisticated, together sound - such a mark of a mature style from a bunch of young (non) punks. Water of Love might, at first, seem a bit cheesy but listen to the inventive drum rhythm and that guitar playing. Dire Straits could have recorded the album Dire Straits in 1969 or 1985 or any time in between and it would have ended up sounding like the Dire Straits album that Dire Straits released (called Dire Straits) in 1978. It is its own thing, of its own creation in its own time.
![play six blade knife dire straits album version play six blade knife dire straits album version](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NIxNg9Fj7OY/hqdefault.jpg)
It makes no attempt to acknowledge punk, to understand any of the musical ideas that were hip or bubbling up from under it makes no bones about standing out on its own as a version of country, a version of blues, a version of folk and a version of rock that is twisted and rolled together - that is in fact some weird British version of an Americana, one that didn't actually exist and hasn't since the album. It might as well have been recorded in a bubble. The other reason - possibly far more legitimate - that people would dislike Dire Straits by Dire Straits is because it was recorded in London in February 1978. It's ridiculous to make this generalisation but that's never stopped me before - I would say that, much as with the solo work of Paul McCartney, it's easier to just say you assume something is no good, rather than to listen to it understand it, evaluate it. I'm sure plenty of people hate it on principle - because they consider Dire Straits only because of what they became, not because of what they were.
![play six blade knife dire straits album version play six blade knife dire straits album version](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bVi-kU7Vqvk/maxresdefault.jpg)
I'm sure loads of people dislike Dire Straits by Dire Straits. And that's just the first four songs of side one, in order. There's bar-room boogie ( Setting Me Up) and cool country-soul ( Six Blade Knife). It's a casual masterpiece, alternating between the urgency of Down to the Waterline (one of the great album openers by anyone on any record) and the laidback lurch of Water of Love. The album Dire Straits, the debut by British band Dire Straits, is one of my favourite records.