New Knopfler!

[jpmist]

I see there are others Knopfler fans from the highjacked Pinky planting post so I thought I'd share my thoughts here . . .

Y'all are probably tired of hearing me praise Knopfler, but I can't help it. He's the single brightest thread that my guitar journey has traveled on from 1978 to now. (Yikes!) I still have memories of driving to my first real job out of school enjoying "Sultans of Swing" on the radio. I spent a lot of time working out his guitar riffs on my strat and acoustic and without MK I dunno how my playing technique and style would have ended up without him to teach me.

That said, I don't always like all of his tracks on any given album. If I like half, that's a good effort. His latest, "Down the Road Wherever" had "Trapper Man," "Back on the Dance Floor," "One Song at a Time," "Matchstick Man" and finally "Floating Away" in heavy rotation even 6 years later. I have literally worn out the electrons on "Floating Away". But when "When You Leave" began with the line "When you leave there's cordite in the air," I'm pretty sure I never listened to it again.

I was shocked to see the album drop! His last album was in 2018 and around 2023 I had figured he'd hung up his guitar for good perhaps due to physical ailments, but I should have known better as even aging rock gods need a hobby. When I heard, I went straight to iTunes which let me down cruelly on my purchase so off to Tidal to copy the 12 tracks while I figure out where to buy the CD.

This sounds insane but I've yet to listen to all the tracks straight thru. Knowing they're likely his last and hating to be disappointed I find myself oddly reluctant. It's as if I don't want to be disappointed so I'm putting it off. So silly, I'll get to it today, but I'll need to choose between TV room stereo, versus headphones. With "Down the Road Wherever" I'd discovered what a masterful job he and his sound engineer does on all the wonderful riffs and sounds they arrange to make a song what it is and I want to get all of that on the first listen.

Apologies in advance for the bloviation, I'll be back with notes after I listen to the new tracks a while.

[Queequeg]

Brothers in Arms was the first CD I ever bought around 1985.
"Money for Nothing (I want my MTV)"
Still sounds good.

[Rockysdad]

Big Knopfler fan here.

I have to say that *Love Over Gold* is an album that I never get tired of listening to.

[jpmist]

Yikes, thanks for mentioning "Love over Gold". I've been doing some old CD and music folder cleanup this week. iTune had a bad habit of deleting my purchased tracks via iCLoud a few years ago to substitute with their own copy and I swear they disappeared quite a few tracks I owned. So combing thru to see if all my Knopfler albums are complete and that one is totally gone! I did have it at some time, and  recall "Telegraph Road" but none of the others. Maybe they're on a hard drive somewhere . . .

[Silence Dogood]

Brothers in Arms was the first CD I ever bought around 1985.
"Money for Nothing (I want my MTV)"
Still sounds good.

I always thought that was such a strange album cover considering the kind of music the album contained.  I never listened to it all because it was my brother's album and I wasn't supposed to be in his room, but I did manage to sneak in there and dive into his vinyl collection from time to time.  Back in those times I thought that opening riff to Money For Nothing was one of the coolest things I'd ever heard.  I was about 10 or 11 when that record came out. 

A few years ago I saw Knopfler interviewed (maybe it was one of those Big Interviews done by Dan Rather, some of those are really good) and he talked about the song Money For Nothing and how he came up with those quirky lyrics.  It seems like he was in some kind of dept store and these workman were in there either delivering stuff or taking it out to be delivered.  All the little odd bits like, "That aint workin..." were parts of their working-class Brit-slang conversation that Knopfler overheard from a few feet away. It's a great story to hear him tell it. 

@jpmist: I know what you mean about diving into a new album, hoping to love it, hating to be disappointed, and all the excitement that surrounds it.  Most of the music that I've really enjoyed for the past 20 or so years has been older music that I've discovered long after the fact.  But now and then I will discover a new artist/band and eagerly anticipate their new music. When it drops there is this really strange sense of anticipation.  I don't want to wear out the record because it will get old, but I don't want to put off diving into it because I want something new to enjoy.  It's a sensation very hard to describe when listening to a new album and learning all the bits and getting them stuck in your head, and when a new melody grabs you and won't let go, etc.  I think there is even a kind of high that takes place when getting to know a new song that really grabs you and makes a connection. 

iTunes was mentioned and Tidal.  I have a Tidal account and it's been a really wonderful service.  I genuinely hate iTunes, and that coming from one that hates few things in this life.  iTunes wiped out the music library on my MacBook TWICE via software upgrades.  Some of that was music I had paid for via Apple (that I never got back), some was stuff I'd recorded of myself over the years (gone forever), and some was old "ripped" CDs from as far back as the 90s with songs/takes/performances that don't exist anywhere else.  Realizing how vulnerable everything digital can be is pretty frightening. 

[StringPicker6]

I love your posts Silence, since we are so close in age (I turned 48 earlier this month).  I just got an actual CD of the new Knopfler album yesterday from amazon and I also downloaded the new Pearl Jam album off iTunes (I also dislike iTunes...).  I will be listening to both albums a lot this weekend. 

[Silence Dogood]

I love your posts Silence, since we are so close in age (I turned 48 earlier this month).  I just got an actual CD of the new Knopfler album yesterday from amazon and I also downloaded the new Pearl Jam album off iTunes (I also dislike iTunes...).  I will be listening to both albums a lot this weekend. 

GenX!  I have a saying I'm fond of:
"GenXers never get old!"
 

I still love physical CDs as well and have several.  When I got my Toyota truck a couple years ago, I was bummed to realize there was not even a place for a CD player.  Was/is there anything better than driving one's own car/truck and picking out a CD for the trip!?

[fantex]

Gen Xer here too, I'm 50. I probably need to get the new Mark Knopfler album. I'm a casual fan of his but I was a huge Pearl Jam fan since the early 90s. I bought the new Pearl Jam CD from Amazon and the digital version goes straight to your Amazon music app. I still buy CDs when I want the whole album.

[jpmist]

@jpmist: I know what you mean about diving into a new album, hoping to love it, hating to be disappointed, and all the excitement that surrounds it.   . . . When it drops there is this really strange sense of anticipation.  I don't want to wear out the record because it will get old, but I don't want to put off diving into it because I want something new to enjoy.  It's a sensation very hard to describe when listening to a new album and learning all the bits and getting them stuck in your head, and when a new melody grabs you and won't let go, etc.  I think there is even a kind of high that takes place when getting to know a new song that really grabs you and makes a connection.

You described all that much better than I. I finally did give the album one listen, more on that in a seperate post. With Knopfler there's now the thought "this might be his last" which raises the stakes a bit more.

iTunes was mentioned and Tidal.  I have a Tidal account and it's been a really wonderful service.  I genuinely hate iTunes, and that coming from one that hates few things in this life.  iTunes wiped out the music library on my MacBook TWICE via software upgrades.   . . . Realizing how vulnerable everything digital can be is pretty frightening.[/i]

Sorry for your itune troubles, but nice to have confirmed I'm not the only one who grinds my teeth at it's memory. I placed the blame on iCloud and Apple's arrogance and unwillingness to make clear what it was doing with our paid non-itune tracks. I share your preference for physical CD's. That the entire history of popular music rests on the digital storage whims of our digital overlords is a scary thought.

[jpmist]

Gen Xer here too, I'm 50. I probably need to get the new Mark Knopfler album. I'm a casual fan of his but I was a huge Pearl Jam fan since the early 90s.

Welp, let me poke my nose in your business and suggest if you're casually getting back into Knopfler you might start with the previous 2018 album "Down the Road Wherever" In spite of liking only 5 of the 14 tracks, it's still my favorite solo album. It spans much more musically as far as musical styles and types of tracks than the newest one and is far better arranged and produced.  Here's youtube link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38uIk9QFDAM&list=OLAK5uy_mWcsiYP3D3AZPM3KtaGySARoJMadccqPo&index=5

[jpmist]

So my apprehensions about the album were, unfortunately, justified. Being a bit harsh now, but most all the songs are dour, dreary and the majority of the tracks have the exact same tempo and rhythm. The arrangements are spare, with his bass and drums restrained to no more than a steady beat for him to play over. So, yeah, as pointed out, they're all ballards.

And I'm ok with all that. Aging rock stars have had a hell of a life and inhabit a unique POV versus us mere mortals. The very idea that you could be standing in front of 20,000 or more paying strangers in a darkened room waiting for you to play a song for the 100th time that you wrote 5 years ago has to do something irreversible to one's ego and outlook on life. The recording studio is where his magic ultimately happens and I guess there's always a tension of "do I record what I like or what I think my fans want?" and in his likely finale, Knopfler ultimately does what he likes.

His musical strength has always been the brief strat lead fills he adds between lines and verses plus his ability to play logically building melodies for lead breaks. There's plenty of that happening on every single track. His choice of topics echo themes he's hit on before, down and out characters finding hope, getting thru life as best as one can, failed romance, anticipating eventual decline to name a few. Where I'm let down is how conservatively all the songs are similarly arranged as opposed to the much more creative variety offered in the 2018 "Down the Road Wherever" album. Virtually every ballard has him doing strat fills in between singing lines, with a barely audible acoustic rhythm guitar, keyboard, and almost no vocal harmonies. My biggest disappointment was that he didn't offer an acoustic fingerpicking track or two. I was so hoping for another "Matchstick Man" or "Heart of Oak."

I'm sure that after a few more listens a couple of them will eventually catch my ear. The first track "Two Pairs of Hands"  already has, but only after it occurred to me to slow it down quite a bit to a speed where I could actually play guitar along with it. So much better and I can appreciate the chord changes and melody so much more. I can't help but wonder if the final step in all current music studio production is "How fast do we make it? The kids like faster music and we have to catch their ear in the first 10 seconds" If there was an emojii for "old man shakes fist at sky" it would go <here>.

[StringPicker6]

I also HIGHLY recommend that 2018 album Down the Road Wherever.  Fantastic Knopfler album. 

[fantex]

Gen Xer here too, I'm 50. I probably need to get the new Mark Knopfler album. I'm a casual fan of his but I was a huge Pearl Jam fan since the early 90s.

Welp, let me poke my nose in your business and suggest if you're casually getting back into Knopfler you might start with the previous 2018 album "Down the Road Wherever" In spite of liking only 5 of the 14 tracks, it's still my favorite solo album. It spans much more musically as far as musical styles and types of tracks than the newest one and is far better arranged and produced.  Here's youtube link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38uIk9QFDAM&list=OLAK5uy_mWcsiYP3D3AZPM3KtaGySARoJMadccqPo&index=5

I'm pretty sure that link is not Mark Kopfler. LOL...

[StringPicker6]

That link is DEFINITELY not Knopfler.
  

[jpmist]

Oops! Here it is "Down the Road Wherever" ---> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxKHVMqMZqUQ4hOy0VC5lBhhK_1wDs7ag

    

[Silence Dogood]

Gen Xer here too, I'm 50. I probably need to get the new Mark Knopfler album. I'm a casual fan of his but I was a huge Pearl Jam fan since the early 90s. I bought the new Pearl Jam CD from Amazon and the digital version goes straight to your Amazon music app. I still buy CDs when I want the whole album.

I will be turning 50 in a couple months.  Pretty hard to believe. 

You mentioned Pearl Jam...  Even though I fell smack in the middle of grunge/alternative, age-wise, I could never connect with it all that much. There were some bands I liked better than others.  Stone Temple Pilots, Alice in Chains, for example, were bands I enjoyed some.  I saw STP live once and it was pretty insane.  Almost got trampled in a mosh-pit that night.  I also saw Nirvana in 1994 not long before Cobain died.  It was a really terrible show.  He was a total mess and merely went through the motions. 

It wasn't so much the music of the grunge era that I could not connect with, but it was the attitude and ethos of the artists that turned me off so much. I would see Cobain, for example, stating in interviews that they never really wanted to make it, weren't interested in success or being on top, etc, etc.  What a complete pile of horse feces!  I mean, if that were the case, they'd never have even left the garage, put themselves in front of an audience, made demos to pass around town, etc, etc.  And then you are handed success on a level that most musicians can only dream of, and your answer is to treat it like some kind of unwanted burden?  Puuullleeeze!

And then one time I saw Pearl Jam accepting some kind of award during their height.  They all got up on the stage and sort of awkwardly stood around the podium and mic.  One of them said something like, "Ah... there are too many bands.... thanks, I guess..." or something to that effect.  Douche-bags all in my estimation.

Stuff like that made it near impossible for me to enjoy the art because it was all coming from a place of pretense and posturing.  I didn't see it so much then, but in hindsight it's also kind of funny how these groups raged against "the man" and society's structure, only to end of feeding it and becoming part of it all as super-rich and "privileged" people.  I found it all disingenuous in my gut during my youth, and find if all complete BS as a grown man. 

The thing that really sucks is that I wanted to like the music, but the artists -- not their art -- ruined it.   I wanted to be a part of all that was happening.  It felt like it was "our time" and moment in the sun, but I never made the connection. 

For what it's worth, I cannot enjoy the music of Neil Young either.  His attitude and constant ranting and posturing is just a complete turnoff.  Just putting that out there to show that I'm not just picking on the grunge crowd alone. 

[fantex]

Yeah, I agree with pretty much all that. I never understood the "we don't want to be big stars, leave us alone" attitude.

I think the "burden" comes from being nobody to overnight being one of the biggest stars in the world. It's got to be hard to understand and cope with.

I did see Pearl Jam once. Never saw the other big ones except +LIVE+ (Throwing Copper). I saw them twice. In the last 15 years they had a huge melt down and their records have just become bland corporate sounding rock like all the rest.

[Silence Dogood]

Yeah, I agree with pretty much all that. I never understood the "we don't want to be big stars, leave us alone" attitude.

I think the "burden" comes from being nobody to overnight being one of the biggest stars in the world. It's got to be hard to understand and cope with.

I did see Pearl Jam once. Never saw the other big ones except +LIVE+ (Throwing Copper). I saw them twice. In the last 15 years they had a huge melt down and their records have just become bland corporate sounding rock like all the rest.

The "burden" could have been eased by just quitting and walking away.  I don't buy it.  YMMV. 

I remember the band Live and liked them a lot.  That guy had a great voice.  My wife's van came with satellite radio when it was new and I noticed Pearl Jam had their own station.  They certainly have a huge following and never missed me not being along for the ride. 
 

[jpmist]

Stuff like that made it near impossible for me to enjoy the art because it was all coming from a place of pretense and posturing.  I didn't see it so much then, but in hindsight it's also kind of funny how these groups raged against "the man" and society's structure, only to end of feeding it and becoming part of it all as super-rich and "privileged" people.  I found it all disingenuous in my gut during my youth, and find if all complete BS as a grown man.  . . .

For what it's worth, I cannot enjoy the music of Neil Young either.  His attitude and constant ranting and posturing is just a complete turnoff.  Just putting that out there to show that I'm not just picking on the grunge crowd alone. 

Interesting post and food for thought, thanks.

The lens I view this stuff now is to imagine what happens to the egos of super successful rock stars as they settle into old age. I recently saw 2 biographies, Steve Martin and Paul Simon and what they had in common was their vibe at 70 & 80 years old where they clearly bought into the high estimation of them by "pop" culture and the media and felt somehow deserving of it. And while I can't argue with the overall accomplishment of filling huge stadiums with fans, neither of them cured cancer or fed the starving - they simply were excellent entertainers.

Neil Young was in my top 3 going thru college and in my early twenties and I soaked in much of my guitar playing style copying his songs. Of the aging dinosaurs still touring, I admire him the most as he still goes out there and gives his fans what they want, yet his music peaked for me 40 years ago. So while I see he's performing near me soon, I wouldn't dream of attending simply because I'm not that 20 year old anymore. I've moved on, but he hasn't.

[StringPicker6]

I'm 48 and I never got the grunge thing, even though it was during my high school years. I never really had the anger to fuel my interest in the music. I distinctly remember a girl in high school crying when she heard that Kurt Cobain killed himself, and I didn't care at all.  Later on in my 20's I listened to it and liked and appreciated the music for itself, but I wouldn't say that it "defined" my youth. I was too busy listening to classic rock and 60's "oldies" Motown on the Philadelphia radio stations in high school. I liked that a whole lot more.