BROTHERLY LOVE

Dire Straits released their seminal album Brothers In Arms 40 years ago tomorrow. It struck a chord with listeners, becoming the first album to sell more than a million copies on CD... and remains a modern classic for rock 'n' roll fans

- By Karen Rockett

TEENAGE boys listened to it endlessly in their bedrooms and even got their New Romantic girlfriends into it too.

Dads played it in the car on the way to work, while younger kids strummed along on their air guitars watching MTV for the first time.

Brothers In Arms by Dire Straits was the ultimate everyman record that summed up the 1980s. It seemed just about everyone had a copy and everyone loved it, whether you were a diehard fan of the band or not.

"All killers and no fillers" was how one music journalist, Jamie Dickson of Guitarist magazine, described the album, which was released 40 years ago tomorrow. “It was the band’s seminal record, which is unusual as that usually happens towards the beginning of a band’s lifetime, not the end,” he tells the Daily Express.

“But it really was a cultural phenomenon, riding the crest of the MTV wave when videos were suddenly very important. That suited their style of music, which was also suited to stadium tours.”

Brothers In Arms was the first album in history to sell more than one million copies in CD format and it remains one of the world’s best-selling albums, having sold more than 30 million copies worldwide to date.

It spent a total of 14 weeks at number one on the UK Albums Chart, 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 also the first album to be certified ten-times platinum in the UK and is the eighth best-selling album in UK chart history.

The album spawned several hit singles, including the US number one hit Money For Nothing, which was the first video played on MTV in Britain, plus So Far Away, Walk Of Life, and the album’s title track.

A special 40th anniversary edition of Brothers In Arms will be released today on CD, vinyl and Blu-Ray. It features a previously unreleased 14-track live concert, album cover art cards and notes from interviews with the band.