Although Outlandos d'Amour received mixed reviews upon its release, it has since been regarded as one of the strongest debut albums. Rolling Stone ranked it as the 38th best debut album of all time and the 428th greatest album of all time.
Background and recording
With a budget of £1,500 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. However, upon hearing "Roxanne" he had the opposite reaction and took the recording to A&M Records the following day, where he persuaded the record label to release it as a one-off single. Although 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 the band create an improved mix of the song, but after five attempts admitted that it 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 label quickly approved the release of the by-then finished album.
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, while the lyrics in its verses were recycled from "Fool in Love", a song he originally wrote for his earlier band Last Exit. The song itself, about someone who is lonely after suffering a broken heart, was seen as ironic by a large segment of the band's listeners. 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 ..."
"Roxanne" was written by Sting after visiting a red-light district near the band's hotel in Paris. The Police had been staying there in October 1977 to perform at the nearby Nashville Club. 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.
The remaining two tracks on the first side of the album are "Hole in My Life", another reggae-influenced song by Sting, and "Peanuts", a composition written by Stewart Copeland and Sting about Rod Stewart. The lyrics were meant as an expression of disappointment on Sting's part towards his former idol, of whom he said: "I used to be a great fan of his but something happened to him. I hope I don't end up like that." 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.
The following track, "Truth Hits Everybody", is a punk-influenced song. After that is "Born in the 50's", which details life as a teenager during the 1960s. "Be My Girl—Sally" is a medley of a half-finished song by Sting and an Andy Summers poem about a blow-up doll. This leads into the semi-instrumental closer, "Masoko Tanga", the only song on the album to not become a staple of the band's live performances.
Two other songs from these sessions were excluded from Outlandos d'Amour but released as B-sides for two of its singles: "Dead-End Job", a song credited to Sting and Copeland, on the B-side of "Can't Stand Losing You"; and "No Time This Time" by Sting, on the B-side of "So Lonely". The latter was subsequently included on the band's second album Reggatta de Blanc.
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