Dire Straits: Brothers in Arms (1985) [080 166-9]

Now who on the planet does not remember the album "Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits, I wonder. Even if they did not know the group, they would certainly have heard "money for nothing" which received constant rotation on radio and MTV. That being said, all four of the videos that were produced for the "Brothers in Arms" album made it to laserdisc three years after the albums release. The disc being reviewed is a gold colored 8" cd-video release in the PAL format [080 166-9]. The cover artwork is taken directly from the original album artwork and cropped to fit onto the familiar black cd-video background. The back cover uses the same blue color and text as the original album to list the details and songs that are feautured on this release. This is really quite a beautiful small package that looks just slightly bigger than a 45 rpm single.

The laserdisc opens with artwork from the album and splashes a few text overlays that announce the disc. It then displays the single version cover for "money for nothing" and moves directly into the video of the same title. The other three tracks are, "So far away", "walk of life" and "brothers in arms". The final track "brothers in arms" has slightly extended audio from its original release to allow for the ending title credits to roll after the fade from the video. It should also be noted that "Walk of life" is the American version of the video selected for this release feauturing the sports theme and not the alternate video that was done inside a subway tunnel, or whatever it was supposed to be.

The video transfers on this release are quite sharp and well-detailed. I would have to say that the video quality is much better than what was used on the Dire Straits video compilation from a few years later Dire Straits: The Videos (1992) [085 544-1]. The sound is equally as impressive as is the sharpness of the video and really is a nice presentation in a small, very cool package! But since this release finds itself on a PDO pressing, finding a rot free copy may be a challenge. Even my copy has slight bronzing at the edge of the disc, although it plays perfectly.

I've got Dire Straits: Brothers in Arms: The Video Singles (1985) [W48L-3002] and it both looks and sounds awesome. Certainly above average for a music LD imo.

The little Japanese 8" disc Dire Straits: Brothers in Arms (1985) [VAMP-3315] is the best version to own - no rot and full size cover replica of the original artwork without the bulk of a 12" disc which is unnecessary for presenting just 4 music videos.

But no decent looking obi.

Yea, I have both of them too in PAL versions. I was just getting ready to write my review for the PAL version of Dire Straits: The Videos (1992) [085 544-1]. I did not feel that "money for nothing" looked quite as sharp on their video collection as it had on the earlier 8" disc, while the other videos looked real nice. But of course I am discussing the PAL version here since I do not have the NTSC releases of those two titles. I did notice that even my 5" PAL cdv Dire Straits: Money For Nothing (1985) [080 130-2] looked sharper than what I found on the video collection but with a bit more grain.