The Police – Outlandos d’Amour

The debut album from The Police was a revelation. Recorded on a shoestring at a time when the band had no label and no management the album bristles with a urgency and intensity that could only have been born of adversity.

Indeed no producer, other than the band, is credited and the production such as it is a notably thin and raw. But what is unmistakable is the wanton brilliance of the playing and the jagged elegance of the songwriting.

Categorized as “punk” or “new wave” the music is, in fact, neither. Like The Clash, The Police merged a hard edged rockabilly with reggae and ska but ended up sounding like none of the above. Add to this Sting’s vaguely existentialist lyrics and you have a new band that immediately transcended the limitations of an easy categorization.

Listening to the album now there’s no doubt that the sonic quality of the recording is lacking but that is part of its charm.

Outlandos d’ Amour contains at least half a dozen classic tracks – the opening triumvirate of Next To You, So Lonely and Roxanne is just staggering. The first is breathtaking in its urgency and obsession while the latter is a beautifully rendered but hopeless plea to the subject of the singers affections. Sandwiched between the two is So Lonely – clearly one of the great “punk” statements of alienation.

On Side 2 the opening salvo of Cant Stand Losing You, Truth Hits Everybody and Born In the 50’s is almost the equal of Side 1. Cant Stand Losing You is  another brilliant song of emotional angst and wry humour (‘your brother’s gonna kill me and he’s six foot ten’). On this song the reggae flavour comes through strongly whereas on Truth Hits Everybody its back to rapid fire punk rock. Born In The 50’s is a clever generational anthem that was an extremely brave point to make on a debut album in 1978.

The unsung hero here is Stuart Copeland. His loose limbed drumming is just phenomenal and it’s him that sets this band apart from its contemporaries. While Sting went on to sing better and Andy Summers went on to provide more lauded guitar work, the adventurous playing of Copeland was the unpredictable factor that made this album a high water mark of post-punk rock trios.

There was no knowing that The Police were going to evolve into  massive stadium rock monsters when you first heard Outlandos d’Amour – but there was no doubt that they were a vital new force.

Even if the album contained a spoken word poem about the love of an inflatable doll!