Dire Straits: Prog-Related? YES.

OK, I've left this one alone for a while (was sick of arguing, so I gave it a rest... should get round to the last two pieces' mini-reviews if I find the motivation), but, answering a few points:

Raff: no band-members' connection.
Ta-da
Apparently.

I have to wonder about one thing... There are suggestions in this section that have received ZERO answers, and will soon fall through the cracks. Yet, people continue to beat this (at least apparently) dead horse. Nine pages to discuss a GREAT band (I have been a fan of theirs since the beginning of their career), but one only very, very marginally related to prog (unlike many other bands already included in PR).

This point been brought up a few times (and sorry for selecting this particular post of yours, Raff, I know that things along the same lines have been said by a number of folks, this just seemed the clearest-phrased). Again, the reason these suggestions receive zero answers is simply that hardly anyone knows them - am I going to pop into a thread about some obscure neo-Zeuhl band and say, 'great job for adding a band I've never heard of in a genre I've got pretty limited interest in'? It's just a matter of notoriety... I don't see how that devalues discussion about more popular/notorious/better-known bands.

Coincidentally, one of those nine pages is probably constituted by people (not you) squeaking, 'close the thread! kill it now!'... which isn't constructive, somewhat detracts from their clause.

(and... as opposed to others in PR... Mike Rutherford and Geddy Lee solo... those are exclusively personnel connections, as far as I can gather from the reviews of them. Now, if a personnel connection alone justified inclusion, we'd obviously have the hated Phil Collins... so that's clearly not the case... would Dire Straits be a more musically related artist than those two, quite possibly...)... again, certainly not meaning to single out/pick on your post Raff, but rather to point out that our policy seems to be, broadly speaking, very inclusive in practice for most not-particularly-well-known bands. On the other hand, the most rigid possible definitions are put out and the most rigid qualifications are demanded when it comes to well-known bands, even when they evidently match up to a lot of the objective criteria the site postulates (as I mentioned, 6/7 or 5/6, can't remember which, of the symph criteria are obviously there). That, to me, seems a tad unfair.

As a discussion point:

We seem to have reached an interest thing wherein a number of folks are saying Private Investigations obviously qualifies as the most 'prog' thing on the album, a number of others, Telegraph Road... now, just an example that people have very different conceptions of 'prog'... again, maybe LOG won't fit in everyone's conceptions of 'prog rock', or even be related for some, and admittedly, there isn't obvious 'influenced-by-and-influenced' content..., but it's not exactly a huge stretch or a difficult leap from contemporary progressive rock in the early 80s to Love Over Gold (which isn't their only credential, but admittedly by far their strongest - a couple of songs off Making Movies, Planet Of New Orleans and bits of Brothers In Arms would arguably qualify).

I think Debrewguy's 'too close to call' is pretty much the direct hit on this one (though I think the whole album could qualify by an inclusive definition, which should, in my view, be what PA uses (given it's a naturally inclusive site as 'the ultimate prog rock resource').

Dean wrote: "Lies, damn lies and statistics" eh?   ...anyway, as facinating as this is, could we continue this line of discussion in the How Popular was Prog in it's Heyday? thread (ugh, just noticed the error in that tread title) and leave this one for discussion of Dire Straits and their unsuitability for Prog Related.   ta.

Since some people think they are immune to my requests I have moved several posts here into the thread highlighed in my quote. Next time I'll just delete them...