Dire Straits
Making Movies

THE REVIEW

If I were asked which album could have the same devastating effect on the ears of an attentive audience, comparable to a firecracker thrown into a crowded bus at 8:00 AM in a city like Rome, we are certainly talking about "Making Movies". The third chapter in the history of Dire Straits represents the continuous evolution of a band in perpetual ascent.

Seven songs with an average duration of about six minutes per track, allowing the group to stay on the LP charts for at least a year, not considering that "Tunnel Of Love" will be the only 45 RPM split into two parts to sympathize with purists of easy listening rock. The group reappears a year and a half after "Communiqué", with notable innovations:
1) the absence (or defenestration?) of David Knopfler, as the album includes photos of the three founding members;
2) the happy introduction of keyboards manipulated by the legendary Roy Bittan (does E-Street Band ring a bell?)
3) a sonic evolution from the first two chapters that perhaps nobody (or almost nobody) could have imagined.

"Tunnel Of Love" starts the show with "Carousel Waltz" (Rodgers/Hammerstein), leading you into a fantastic love story set in an amusement park, where that carefree singing perfectly contrasts with the shimmering rhythmic sound that shows perfect sonic cohesion among all instruments: a somewhat unusual track given that after the powerful introductory verse, it follows with a bridge that elegantly leads to one of the most beautiful choruses ever composed by M.K. The final solo starts as a provocation by the leader, continuing hand in hand with the keyboards, culminating in that last minute and a half of a duel between the two instruments, seeing them reach the finish line like consecrated champions. "Romeo And Juliet", a beautiful love song characterized by that Dobro which will become a distinctive mark for many of the group's ballads. Certainly one of the band's most enchanting performances, considering that the same track will be the most appreciated during their participation at the San Remo Festival in 1981, also for those simple yet profound final notes that make it almost unique, like the magical intro.
We encounter a work of fine quality both for the more engaging tracks like "Skateway" (which was performed only during the M.M. supporting tour) and "Expresso Love" (which assimilates fleeting loves to our famous coffee), as well as for the anthem of a love story gone wrong and the subsequent final mea-culpa, set to the music of "Hand In Hand". Next comes "Solid Rock", fast, gritty, and effective like a punch from Tyson in the stomach, which will appropriately earn the band the title of "Great Rock'N Roll Orchestra" (a self-proclamation you'll hear shouted by the leader in more than a few bootlegs of the era). "Les Boys" (the only sore point?! for which I don't feel like lowering the Expresso score) that joyfully concludes the work, offers musically (and textually) less serious and more carefree horizons, delivering to the world of rock music one of the most exciting works ever published.

A friendly tip for those for whom the name Dire Straits represents a dark and unknown world... Making Movies can be the lantern with which to begin illuminating the path toward a radiant discography.