Album Title
The Police
Artist Icon Outlandos d'Amour (1978)
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Back Cover
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First Released

Calendar Icon 1978

Genre

Genre Icon New Wave

Mood

Mood Icon Relaxed

Style

Style Icon Rock/Pop

Theme

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Tempo

Speed Icon Medium

Release Format

Release Format Icon Album

Record Label Release

Speed Icon A&M/Octone Records

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Album Description
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Outlandos d'Amour is the debut album by The Police, released in 1978.

The album, while at times incorporating reggae, pop, and other elements of what would eventually become the definitive sound of the band, is dominated by punk influences. It starts off with "Next To You", a punk number with a slide guitar solo in the middle. The reggae-tinged "So Lonely" follows. "Roxanne", about a prostitute, was written by Sting after visiting a red-light district in Paris and is one of The Police's best-known songs. It is followed by "Hole in My Life", another reggae-tinged song, and "Peanuts", a Sting–Stewart Copeland collaboration which blends punk aggression with a decidedly humorous tone. "Can't Stand Losing You" and the high-tempo "Truth Hits Everybody" begin side two of the original LP. "Be My Girl—Sally" is a medley of a half-finished song by Sting and an Andy Summers poem about a blowup doll. This leads into the semi-instrumental closer, "Masoko Tanga", the only song on the album to not become a staple of the Police's live performances.

Two other songs from these sessions were released as b-sides: "Dead End Job" credited to the entire band on the flip of "Can't Stand Losing You," and "No Time This Time" by Sting on the back of "So Lonely," later issued on Reggatta de Blanc.

Punk band No Use for a Name covered the song "Truth Hits Everybody" (with modified lyrics) on their 1990 debut album, Incognito. The pop-punk band Motion City Soundtrack also covered the same song for a Police covers album. "Next to You" was later packaged in Rock Band. "Truth Hits Everybody", "Roxanne", "Can't Stand Losing You", and "So Lonely" were all released as downloadable content for the Rock Band series.

With a budget of only £1,500 borrowed from Stewart Copeland's brother Miles Copeland III, the album was recorded at Surrey Sound in an intermittent fashion over six months, with the band jumping in whenever the studio had free time or another band's sessions were canceled. Miles Copeland had promised to pay Surrey Sound £2,000 upon completion of the recording, but didn't give them the full amount until much later.

Miles Copeland occasionally dropped into the studio during recordings, and reacted to what he heard from the group with vehement derision. However, upon hearing "Roxanne" he had the opposite reaction and took the recording to A&M Records the following day, where he persuaded them to release it as a one-off single. Though the single failed to chart, A&M agreed to give the band a second chance with "Can't Stand Losing You". At first, A&M proposed that they create an improved mix of the song, but after five attempts admitted that they could not improve upon the band's mix and released the original mix for the single. When it became the band's first hit, the record label quickly approved the release of the by-then finished album.

Miles Copeland III originally wanted to name the album Police Brutality. However, after hearing "Roxanne" and then envisioning a more romantic image for the band, he proposed Outlandos d'Amour instead. This title was a loose French translation of "Outlaws of Love", with the first word being a combination of the words "outlaws" and "commandos", and "d'Amour" meaning "of love".
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User Album Review
Outlandos d'Amour is not only the first Police album, it's the best. Suicide, abandoned loves, desperation and loneliness…hardly subjects for a pop album, yet from Stewart Copeland's punky opening beats on ''Next to You'' through to the mellow, ''Masoko Tanga'', Outlandos D'amour leaves you upbeat and wanting more.

Drummer, Copeland, and Sting (Gordon Sumner) formed the Police with guitarist Henri Padovani in 1976 after meeting at a jazz club. But after just one single, Padovani was replaced with Andy Summers whose musical lineage involved playing with The Animals, the Kevin Ayers Band and Neil Sedaka (!).

Like many great works of art, the band's debut LP initially flopped along with the single ‘’Roxanne’’. Impoverished, they set off across America in 1978. On their return, buoyed by favourable reviews in the states they re-released the single which soon climbed to number 12, and also taking Outlandos d'Amour into the album charts. After that, there was no looking back for the threesome.

The Police have left their mark with a fusion of soft punk, a-political white-boy ska and shocks of bleached blond hair. But it's their easy refrains that make the tracks so damn catchy. Sting's melodramatic-yet-simple lyrics are perfect for short pop songs (and betray his early career as an English teacher).

'’Roxanne’’’s opening bars remain some of the most recognised in pop. Written by Sting after visiting a red-light district in Paris, it perfectly showcases his tormented schoolboy voice. And, in case you wondered, the laughter at the opening is said to be caused by one of the band accidentally sitting on the piano keyboard.

More songs about misery and loneliness follow: "Hole in My Life", "Can't Stand Losing You" and "Truth Hits Everybody", but the thing with Police songs, like the ‘100 million castaways looking for a home’ in the later ‘‘Message in a Bottle’’ – is that you never feel like you're alone. Even ‘Can't Stand Losing You’, with it’s threats of suicide has a certain irony and comic indulgence to it.

"Peanuts", and "Born in the 50s" move back into a punky and more chirpy anthemic refrain and by the time you get to "Be My Girl -- Sally", you're laughing out loud at the short Summers poem about a blow-up doll. And once at the end, you’ll want to start all over again.


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