#428 The Police - Outlandos d'Amour (1978)
MUSIC HISTORY WRITTEN BY HEAD WRITER DJ MORTY COYLE:
Released on November 2nd 1978 on A&M Records, this is the self-produced debut album by the British, post-punk, new wave, rock, jazz, and often reggae-influenced power trio, The Police.
While on tour with his Prog-Rock band Curved Air in 1976, drummer Stewart Copeland met Sting (the former Gordon Sumner) who played bass and lead vocals in the Jazz-Rock Fusion band Last Exit.
They got together later that year with Stewart’s Mediterranean guitarist friend Henry (or On-Ree) Padovani to become a power trio.
In 1977 before they ever played a show The Police put out the high-energy single “Fallout” backed by “Nothing Achieving” on Stewart’s brother Miles Copeland’s Illegal Records. It was written and produced by Stewart and dumbed down by the over-qualified band to appeal to the then current Punk Rock craze.
It didn’t chart but it sold fairly well due to its Punk-fashioned, picture sleeve, Mick Jagger’s favorable review in Sounds Magazine, and the lack of many other Punk singles available.
It would be the only single that Henry Padovani would record with the band.
Shortly after, Sting and Stewart played with former Prog-Rock band, Gong bassist Mike Howlett in his band Strontium 90 which also featured an already veteran guitarist named Andy Summers.
Summers was about ten years older than the other guys and had played in popular British R&B, Psychedelic, and Acid Rock bands throughout the ‘60s.
Sting and Stewart grabbed Andy to play second guitar for The Police and they became a four-piece for a month and then Padovani was permanently replaced by Summers.
Andy’s appropriately inventive playing melded perfectly with Sting’s Jazzy bass chops, and Stewart’s ability to play world beat rhythms as well as rock out.
With a budget of only £1,500 (Pounds) borrowed from Miles Copeland, now the band’s manager, this album was recorded over six months at Surrey Sound Studio, whenever there was free time or another band’s sessions were canceled. Miles would stop in to listen to what they were recording and hated most of it… until he heard Sting’s love song to a prostitute, “Roxanne.”
He loved it so much that the next day he took it to A&M Records and got them to release it as a single. Even though it didn’t do well A&M gave them another chance and the follow up, “Can’t Stand Losing You” was their first hit.
That secured them the release of this record which Miles originally wanted them to call, “Police Brutality.”
However after he heard “Roxanne” he thought it needed a more romantic title so he proposed 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.”
Sting wrote every song on the album besides one co-write each with Stewart and Andy.
By 1979 “Outlandos d’Amour” was on both the UK and Billboard charts and four albums in as many years later The Police were the biggest band in the world.