🎵 AotW AOTW: The Police - OUTLANDOS D'AMOUR (SP-4753)

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LPJim

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The Police
OUTLANDOS D'AMOUR
A&M SP-4753
sp4753.jpg

sp4753alt1.jpg


Andy Summers - guitar
Stewart Copeland - drums
Sting (Gordon Sumner) - bass & vocals

SIDE ONE

Next to You 2:50
So Lonely 4:49
Roxanne (# 32) 3:12
Hole in My Life 4:52
Peanuts (Sting/S. Copeland) 3:58

SIDE TWO

Can't Stand Losing You 2:58
Truth Hits Everybody 2:53
Born in the '50s 3:40
Be My Girl - Sally (Sting/A. Summers) 3:22
Masoko Tanga 5:40

Arranged & Produced by The Police
All songs written by Sting except as indicated
Recorded at Surry Sound Studios

SP 4753 entered the Billboard Top 200 on March 3, 1979, peaked at #23 & charted for 63 weeks
Available on CD

Art Direction: Michael Ross
Photography: Janettte Beckman
Thanks to Joe Sinclair: "Hole in My Life" & "Masoko Tanga"

JB
 
I remember hearing this. I had read various articles (Rolling Stone, Billboard and maybe Stereo Review) saying how great this album was and how the Police were going to be the "next big thing" .... plus, it was on A&M, how could it miss? So I bought this album having never heard any of the music --not even the hit single "Roxanne" because we had no pop radio station here at the time.

I didn't like it. I couldn't get into Sting's voice and the overall sound of the group just wasn't to my liking. I just wasn't into most of the "punk" style music or "new wave" or whatever this was called at the time. So, into the used-records bin it went.

Now that it's years later I've grown to like "Roxanne" and some of the other songs a bit more, but I still prefer later-era Police songs. My favorite albums of theirs are Ghost in the Machine and Synchronicity.
 
I've always felt this album was a bit uneven, but there are still a lot of good songs here which IMHO were a bit more sophisticated than many of their contemporaries were putting out. I never really grew to like "Roxanne" but appreciate it more from a few live recordings I've heard.

"Can't Stand Losing You" is a perfect example of the early Police sound though, where Andy Summers contributes to an atmospheric interlude mid way through the song, and "Truth Hits Everybody" is another highlight. If you've ever heard the first Police single, "Fall Out" / "Nothing Achieving" / "Dead End Job", you can appreciate that without Summers they probably would not have gone much of anywhere. Nothing against Henri Padovani but his guitar work was very average in comparison to what Summers brought to the table.

Reggatta de Blanc to me was a lot more solid end to end while still being in the same basic style as Outlandos. (And no, I don't buy into the whole "The Police sold out" mentality that many have for Ghost and Synchronicity. Just don't get me started on Sting's solo career. :laugh: )
 
Yep, he's definitely one of those artists where the "Best of" is better than the solo studio albums. (I liked quite a few of the songs on Blue Turtles.)
 
I really was into Sting back in the day, but each album just had less and less that I liked. Mercury Falling to me was so unlistenable that I only made it through a few minutes of the first three songs, put it back in its jewel case and haven't played it since. The used shops won't even take it. :laugh: For me the Blue Turtles and Bring On The Night (which I grabbed on import CD since the US chose not to release it) were the highlights. If you see how beaten my Blue Turtles CD is, you'd understand. I'm surprised it still plays.

Some of the album tracks from later albums I do like, but my taste has changed and I don't even care for those anymore. IMHO, though, Symphonicities hit total rock bottom: Police and Sting songs set to strings. I just had to hear these songs set to strings, as occasionally these projects do turn out well. Bad move. Hearing "Next To You" from Outlandos was the most embarrassing thing I've ever heard him do. :rolleyes: Glad I only borrowed it; I'd have demanded a refund. :laugh: This project seemed as desperate as Rod Stewart doing standards.
 
Heard The Police "LIVE" for the first time on the radio when W106 (long defunct rock station in Saginaw, MI) was played at the "Bottom Line" in New York City back in June or July of 1979.
 
I never caught them on radio, but at one point they were on a one-hour special on cable TV, no idea which channel it was. It wasn't so much a concert as a studio performance of some kind. Sting did the pogo all the way through it. :wtf: (That is murder on the calf muscles BTW!)

One interesting document if you can find it is the Police Around The World video. I have it buried somewhere on laserdisc. Basically performances of them at various stops on a world tour, before they really broke into the big time.
 
I'm a huge Police fan, but this was one of the last albums of theirs that I got back in the day. "Roxanne" was on the radio all the time and it's a good track, but my favorite song is "So Lonely", with "Next To You" and "Can't Stand Losing You" (great lyrics, BTW) coming behind. Of course, "Be My Girl - Sally" has a bit of a naughty side to it. :wink:

I remember people trying to promote the Police as a punk band, but I never thought of them as that, although in all honesty I'm not an expert on punk music.
 
I just added the alternative cover (I believe there's even a third variation, but haven't been able to confirm it).

This album, their first, is indeed a bit uneven. I found that I liked them more with each new album. It was the third, Zenyatta Mondatta, that broke them out. Saw them on tour not long after ZM with new (at that time) IRS artist The Go-Go's opening... (I'd hoped they'd keep going with the funny "mock latin" album names, but they stopped that game with the release of Ghost In The Machine (another good album).
 
Yep, there is a third variation. The original UK vinyl pressing has the same cover photograph, but unedited with the striplighting in the background. The tones are a little more neon-tinted, whilst 'THE POLICE' is in pale blue and the title is in a kinda handwritten script leaning towards the upper left corner of the cover. If I had any tech skills whatsoever I'd add a pic of it! A quick Google image search and you'll see it. It has been reissued on vinyl (Universal), and as far as I know it has the UK cover art...

"Outlandos" was the first LP I ever bought. It's not my fave Police LP but it paved the way for a lot of A&M stuff for me down the years...
 
I remember people trying to promote the Police as a punk band, but I never thought of them as that, although in all honesty I'm not an expert on punk music.

Sort of an "edge case" if you will. I see them as being sort of in the new wave/punk/reggae-rock fray, but Sting's more sophisticated songwriting set them apart from many of their peers (similar to how Joe Jackson came up in the punk/angry-young-man mold...and then broke the mold several times in later years). The band also had a lot more instrumental talent than others. I get the feeling Outlandos was where they were trying to find themselves, and managed to get most of the pieces of the puzzle in place. They stayed in the same formula for Reggatta but you can tell they really gelled as a unit--much tighter and more stylistically similar between tracks. Outlandos is still fine as debut albums go!
 
Yep, there is a third variation. The original UK vinyl pressing has the same cover photograph, but unedited with the striplighting in the background. The tones are a little more neon-tinted, whilst 'THE POLICE' is in pale blue and the title is in a kinda handwritten script leaning towards the upper left corner of the cover. If I had any tech skills whatsoever I'd add a pic of it!

Here ya go!

The-Police-Outlandos-D-Amour.jpg


Interesting label on the 200g LP:

00104d84_medium.jpeg


I also found a green variation online:

The-Police-Outlandos-dAmour-464318.jpg
 
Alright! That green one is the third American variation then. The one Mexicat descibes (and the 200gm one you post) are the British covers which are slightly different than their US counterparts...
 
Hi,

Does anyone know what that strange instrument is playing at 2:16 and at 3:20 on "Peanuts"? I'd like to think it's some sort of saxophone. Only Sting and Stewart Copeland, who wrote this track together, would know for sure.

~Ben
 
Certainly not a bad debut album at all, though I agree with everyone above that their later albums are much stronger. I agree with Capt. Bacardi that "Roxanne" isn't necessarily the best track here, even if it's the biggest hit, and similarly prefer "Can't Stand Losing You" (my fave cut on the disc), "So Lonely," and "Next to You." I can't recall the last time I listened to either of the closing two cuts on either side of the album, though.
 
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