Outlandos d'Amour is the debut studio album by the English rock band the Police, released on 17 November 1978 by A&M Records. Elevated by the success of its lead single, "Roxanne", Outlandos d'Amour peaked at No. 6 on the UK Albums Chart and at No. 23 on the Billboard 200. The album spawned two additional hit singles: "Can't Stand Losing You" and "So Lonely".
Although Outlandos d'Amour received mixed reviews upon its release, it has since been regarded as one of the strongest debut albums ever. Rolling Stone ranked it as the 38th best debut album of all time and the 428th greatest album of all time.
Background and recording
On a budget of £1,500 (£ in ) borrowed from their manager, Miles Copeland (brother of drummer Stewart), the Police recorded Outlandos d'Amour at Surrey Sound Studios in an intermittent fashion over six months, with the band recording whenever the studio had free time or another band's sessions were cancelled. Miles Copeland had promised to pay Surrey Sound £2,000 upon completion of the recording, but did not give them the full amount until much later.
Miles occasionally visited the studio during recording, and he reacted to what he heard from the band with vehement derision.
Miles had 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 is 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".
Music and lyrics
Outlandos d'Amour, while at times incorporating reggae, pop and other elements of what would eventually become the band's definitive sound, is dominated by punk influences. This is evident on the opening track "Next to You", despite it essentially being a love song. Stewart Copeland and guitarist Andy Summers initially felt the lyrics were neither aggressive nor political enough for their style at the time, but bassist and vocalist Sting was adamant about keeping the song as it was. "Next to You" includes a slide guitar solo by Summers, which Copeland initially dismissed as "old wave".
The second track is the reggae-influenced "So Lonely". Sting has said he used Bob Marley's "No Woman, No Cry" as the musical basis for the song, Sting disagreed with this sentiment, saying, "No, there's no irony whatsoever. From the outside it might look a bit strange, being surrounded by all this attention and yet experiencing the worst lonely feeling ... but I do. And then suddenly the attention is withdrawn a half an hour later. You're so isolated ..." The song's title comes from the name of the character in the play Cyrano de Bergerac, an old poster of which was hanging in the hotel foyer. Sting had originally conceived the song as a bossa nova, although Stewart Copeland has been credited for suggesting its final rhythmic form as a tango. During recording, Sting accidentally sat down on a piano keyboard in the studio, resulting in the atonal chord and laughter preserved at the beginning of the track. The Police were initially reluctant about the song, but Miles Copeland was immediately enthusiastic after hearing it. Having since experienced the celebrity lifestyle himself, he has said he no longer identifies with the song's lyrical content and has come to view Stewart in a different light.
"Can't Stand Losing You" begins side two of the original LP. Written and composed by Sting, the song is about a young lover being driven to suicide following a breakup. In a 1993 interview with The Independent, he described the lyrics as "juvenile", saying that "teenage suicide ... is always a bit of a joke"; he also claimed to have written the lyrics in only five minutes. "So Lonely" was released as the album's third single in November 1978, which was released as their first single there. "Roxanne" charted on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1979, peaking at No. 32 in April of the same year. It was also successful in Canada, where it peaked at No. 31. The song received increasing airplay from radio DJs in both the US and the UK throughout April 1979.
The international success of "Roxanne" spurred a UK reissue of the single in April 1979, which went to No. 12 on the UK singles chart. A subsequent reissue of "Can't Stand Losing You" in June 1979 nearly topped the chart, surpassed only by "I Don't Like Mondays" by the Boomtown Rats. "So Lonely" was also reissued, reaching No. 6 on the UK singles chart in February 1980.
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Contemporary reviews of the album were largely unfavourable. Tom Carson of Rolling Stone had high praise for the band's technical abilities, but was disparaging of their attempt to tackle sophisticated rock and reggae while posturing as punks. Carson also perceived a lack of emotional conviction on the album, especially in Sting's vocals, concluding that "Outlandos d'Amour isn't monotonous—it's far too jumpy and brittle for that—but its mechanically minded emptiness masquerading as feeling makes you feel cheated ... worn out by all the supercilious, calculated pretense." Robert Christgau of The Village Voice was more positive. He complimented the band's "tuneful, straight-ahead rock and roll" and wrote that almost all of the album's songs "make the cretin in me hop", though only "Can't Stand Losing You" "makes him jump up and down". and at No. 428 on the 2012 revised edition of the list. The magazine also ranked Outlandos d'Amour at No. 38 on its 2013 list of the 100 best debut albums of all time, describing the band as "post-punks who could play their instruments, absorbing reggae and jazz into the spare, bouncy sound of their debut album, a record that didn't sound quite like anything before it."
Track listing
Personnel
Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.
The Police
- Sting – vocals, bass guitar, "butt piano" on "Roxanne", spoken word on “Sally”
- Stewart Copeland – drums
Production
- The Police – production, arrangement
- Tony "Tone" Bridge – mastering
- Chris Gray – engineering
- Nigel Gray – engineering
- Janette Beckman – photography
- Les May – design
- Michael Ross – art direction
Charts
Weekly charts
{|class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
!scope="col"| Chart (1979–81)
!scope="col"| Peak<br />position
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!scope="row"| Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)
|style="text-align:center;"| 15
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{|class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
!scope="col"| Chart (2016)
!scope="col"| Peak<br />position
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Year-end charts
{|class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
!scope="col"| Chart (1979)
!scope="col"| Position
|-
!scope="row"| Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)
|style="text-align:center;"| 9
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! scope="row" | New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)
|style="text-align:center;"| 50
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!scope="row"| US Albums (Billboard 200)
|style="text-align:center;"| 71
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{|class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
!scope="col"| Chart (1980)
!scope="col"| Position
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!scope="row"| Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)
|style="text-align:center;"| 58
|}