Album Description:
“Communiqué” landed in 1979 like a postcard from a band that suddenly found itself famous, exhausted, and still pretending none of this bothered them. The album feels like Dire Straits stepping out of the smoky pubs of their debut and blinking into the bright light of world expectation. It’s understated, confident, and suspiciously calm — the kind of calm you get right before a long storm of success.
Late-seventies Britain was wobbling between economic gloom and musical reinvention. Punk had already kicked the doors in, disco was busy filling dancefloors, and Blondie, The Police, and Supertramp were reshaping the charts. In that chaos, Dire Straits kept doing the most rebellious thing imaginable: staying quiet, precise, and emotionally literate. “Communiqué” reflects that energy — not trendy, not flashy, just quietly brilliant.
The band had barely recovered from the whirlwind success of their debut when the label nudged them back into the studio. One year earlier they were scraping pounds together; now they were shipped off to Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas, where the sun shines much brighter than London pubs ever do. Knopfler was suddenly a songwriter in demand, the band was navigating fame at high speed, and deadlines were no longer suggestions. “Communiqué” became the sound of a group trying to keep their footing while the ground kept sliding forward.
Musically, the album settles into a confident mid-tempo groove — all clean guitars, warm bass, and that unmistakable Knopfler narrative drift. It’s music that doesn’t need to raise its voice because the stories do the heavy lifting. Tracks like “Once Upon a Time in the West” and “Lady Writer” show the band refining the cinematic, slow-burn style that would later make them stadium giants. Even the quieter songs feel like they’re wandering through soft-lit streets, half-memory, half-dream.
Compared to what else 1979 was serving — Pink Floyd’s grand theatrics, AC/DC’s blunt force riffing, and the pop elegance of Fleetwood Mac — “Communiqué” chose the road less frantic. It’s a sibling of albums that preferred mood over muscle, like “Breakfast in America” or “Regatta de Blanc.” Dire Straits didn’t try to outshine their peers; they opted to outlast them with understatement.
The album dodged big controversies, unless you count critics complaining that the band sounded “too similar” to their debut. Some called it a repeat performance; others just turned it up and enjoyed the ride. In hindsight, the real “controversy” was that Dire Straits refused to reinvent themselves every six months — they simply kept polishing what worked.
Inside the band, however, the pressure was starting to cook. Touring was endless, fame was unevenly distributed, and two brothers in the same band is always a delicate chemical experiment. You can almost feel David Knopfler slipping into the background, Mark taking firmer command, and the whole machine tightening its bolts before the big albums still to come.
Reception at the time was warm but cautious — fans loved the consistency, critics wanted more fireworks. Decades later, the same album feels wiser and more patient than anyone realized. These songs have aged like late-night conversations: soft around the edges, full of detail, quietly unforgettable.
Slip the record out of its German sleeve today and it still exudes that cool, unhurried confidence. No drama, no gimmicks — just four musicians sketching stories across clean grooves. After all these years, “Communiqué” still sounds like a message sent from a calmer world… one we wouldn’t mind revisiting.
