Send "Mark Knopfler " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Billboard |
 Fifteen years removed from the global success of Dire Straits, Mark Knopfler is ever the quiet craftsman, sculpting one modest gem after another beyond the spotlight (at least in the United States). It's a shame that his solo music is largely ignored outside the States, because his albums are cohesive and complete in concept and they boast an aural bonanza of sound. "Get Lucky" is a tribute to the experiences and personalities of Knopfler's youth. The album takes sonic sojourns to the likes of Scotland ("Border River") and the Wild West ("Cleaning My Gun"), and the songs all seem to lock, with such prayer-like moments as the lovely "Remembrance Day." Listening to "Get Lucky" feels like a journey, where great care has been taken to ensure that you'll come back a little better.-Wes Orshoski...full text |
| Popmatters |
| Like a college student to free pizza, music critics often seem to experience an intense magnetic pull to compare any new Mark Knopfler solo release to his work with Dire Straits. As time has passed, however, that comparison has proven less and less useful. First, Knopfler has now spent more of his musical life outside Dire Straits than as a member of the influential UK group he co-founded in the late ‘70s. Secondly, the quantity of music that he’s produced as a film scorer (nearly a dozen soundtracks) and solo artist (six albums) far outnumbers the six-album Dire Straits catalog. And, lastly, Knopfler’s music career outside of Dire Straits has always been a seemingly purposeful departure from (and perhaps reaction to) his work with the hit-making band of “Sultans of Swing”, “Money for Nothing”, and “Walk of Life” fame. Despite such facts, it is the standard created by Dire Straits to which Knopfler is constantly held. That’s certainly the price to pay for being a world famous rock star, and one that Knopfler is probably willing to shell out, given the fact that it’s allowed him a measure of freedom in his post-Dire Straits career. But, it’s hard to find a review of a non-Dire Straits Mark Knopfler album that doesn’t express some measure of disappointment with its lack of Dire Straits sound. And that’s a shame....full text |
| Allmusic |
| With the release of Get Lucky, Mark Knopfler has made as many solo studio albums as he made group studio albums with Dire Straits, which may be a signal that it's time to stop comparing his two careers and simply accept them as separate entities. Of course, since Knopfler was the lead singer, chief instrumentalist, and songwriter for Dire Straits, there are obvious similarities, even if he has taken a deliberately different path as a solo artist. Basically, he's a lot quieter. "Border Reiver," the first song here, begins with a pennywhistle and a piano, then strings join in. Soon enough, Knopfler's distinctive conversational baritone begins calmly intoning lyrics, and eventually there are examples of his melodic fingerpicked guitar style on both acoustic and electric. He even works up to a smoldering swamp rock shuffle, à la J.J. Cale, on "Cleaning My Gun." But that's as close as he comes to really rocking out. More typical is "Hard Shoulder," a ballad that employs a twangy guitar sound and comes across as a number that Glen Campbell could have had a hit with back in his late-'60s "Wichita Lineman" heyday. The tunes support Knopfler's story-songs and musical character studies, as he describes or embodies truck drivers ("Border Reiver"), itinerant workers ("Get Lucky"), guitar makers ("Monteleone"), and sailors ("So Far from the Clyde"), among others, painting a portrait of pastoral and blue-collar life in the British Isles some time in the past. This Glasgow-born guitarist comes by the Celtic influence honestly, of course, but he seems to be trying to create his own pseudo-traditional repertoire of what often sound like old folk songs. That's certainly one of the things he was trying to do in Dire Straits. "Remembrance Day" here is similar in tone to Dire Straits' "Brothers in Arms," but then so is much of Knopfler's solo work; old fans still may lament that there isn't much that sounds like "Sultans of Swing" or "Money for Nothing."...full text |
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