Communiqué

A background on communique:

Written and released just 7 months after their debut album “Dire Straits”(self titled), the band’s 1979 album “communique” is in my opinion the greatest piece of music ever made.

This is definitely a bold take, as many people today have never even heard a song from this album let alone listened to the whole thing. However popularity nowadays does not equal quality and communique exemplifies this perfectly.

When it released in 1979, communique reached number one on album charts in Germany, Spain, New Zealand, and Sweden, number 11 in the United States and number 5 in the United Kingdom. Communiqué was later certified gold in the United States, platinum in the United Kingdom and double-platinum in France. The French might be cranky but they know their stuff when it comes to music.

An explanation for communique’s decline in popularity through the years is its lack of a true no. 1 hit song. For example, their debut album featured Sultans of Swing, a legendary track that has 1,822,394,549 streams on Spotify alone. Communique never had a song like this, so with nothing from the album that stood out particularly, it sadly lost popularity as time passed.

One of the most fascinating parts about communique is that the recording sessions for it took place from November 28th to December 12th, 1978. It was then mixed and released in the summer of 1979. This is unbelievable as artists nowadays will spend as much as 5 years to write a single album, and Dire Straits took a mere 14 days to make this masterpiece.

There is little doubt in my mind that this is Dire Straits’ most cohesive album. I can confidently say that Communique is the only album ever produced that fails to have a single “skip”. Like not even close. Other albums have songs that are “ehh” but every track on communique is a masterpiece and unskippable.

Moving into the contents of the album, its one of the most unique sounds out there. To me the most impressive aspect is how Dire Straits was able to capture such a coastal, warm, and summery atmosphere in this project. Mark Knopfler, their legendary lead singer and guitarist, was born in Glasglow, Scotland. As if that wasn’t UK enough, he moved to Newcastle when he was 7. This dude should have no business making sunny, beachy sounding music, but nevertheless he mastered the sound.

I would describe Communique as a warm, coastal breeze coming in through an open window. It was recorded at Compass Point in the Bahamas, and this tropical atmosphere oozes throughout the entire album. You can hear it in the bright guitar, Knopfler’s relaxed vocals, and the simplicity of each song. Communique is one of the few albums ive heard that legitimately feels as if it were made outside, if that makes sense.

One final note about the uniqueness of this album, Mark Knopfler himself noted in an interview that Communiqué sounds different from the other albums because the drums and bass guitar were recorded differently, making all the tracks feel much more solid. Another really interesting fact about Communique is that it used instruments that didn’t even exist. While bored one night in the studio, Pick Withers (Dire Straits’ drummer) casually invented a DIY instrument: a metal movie reel canister that he partially filled with sand. He used this as a shaker in several songs, such as “Single-Handed Sailor” and “Follow Me Home”. The shaker sound that’s so prominent in the beginning of “Follow Me Home” is actually his DIY sand swisher. These little details from Communique’s production help explain why it sounds so unique. There’s no wonder that the album sounds beachy, it literally uses sand swishing around as an instrument.

Its been 650 words of background, so it might be a good time to dive into each song.

Id like to preface all of my song commentary by first saying that I feel like Communique is the chronological order of a summer day. Hopefully youll understand what I mean as we go through the album. Keep an open mind.