Outlandos D'Amour

Outlandos d’Amour is the debut album by The Police, released in 1978.

The LP initially flopped, due to low exposure and an unfavourable reaction from the BBC to its first two singles, “Can’t Stand Losing You” and “Roxanne” (about suicide and prostitution, respectively). As Sting describes:
“ …We had publicity campaign with posters about how the BBC banned “Roxanne”. The reason they had a problem with “Can’t Stand Losing You” was because the photo on the cover of the single had Stewart standing on a block of ice with a noose around his neck, waiting for the ice to melt. ”

However, the band’s low-budget tour of America in support of the album made people across the country aware of the band, and especially “Roxanne”. The song received more and more airplay from radio DJs in both the United States and Great Britain through April 1979. When A&M re-released “Roxanne”, it went to #12 on the UK charts, and “Can’t Stand Losing You” followed, eventually hitting #2. The album itself peaked at #6.

The album starts off with “Next To You”, a punk number with a slide guitar solo in the middle. “So Lonely”, a song about loneliness with a reggae beat follows. “Roxanne”, about a prostitute, was written by Sting after visiting a red-light district in Paris and is (along with “Every Breath You Take”) one of the Police’s best-known songs. It is followed by “Hole in My Life”, another reggae-type song about loneliness, and “Peanuts”, a Sting-Stewart Copeland collaboration with a strong punk influence.