This day in 1978: With a budget of only £1,500 (under $2000 USD) borrowed from Stewart Copeland’s brother Miles Copeland III, The Police started recording their debut album at Surrey Sound Studios, Surrey, England with producer Nigel Gray. The album ‘Outlandos d’Amour’ which was released in November of this year featured the hits ‘So Lonely’, ‘Roxanne’ and ‘Can’t Stand Losing You’.
Although Outlandos d’Amour received mixed reviews upon its release, it has since been regarded as one of the strongest debut albums by any band or artist. It ranked No. 38 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of “100 Best Debut Albums of All Time”. In 2012, the magazine ranked it No. 428 on their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
Miles Copeland occasionally dropped into the studio during recordings, and reacted to what he heard from the group 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 company to release it as a one-off single. Though 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 record label quickly approved the release of the by-then finished album. Miles Copeland had originally wanted to name the album Police Brutality. However, after hearing “Roxanne” and then envisioning a more romantic image for the band, he proposed Outlandos d’Amour instead. This title was 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”.
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 the United Kingdom in April 1979. When A&M re-released “Roxanne”, it went to No. 12 on the UK charts, and “Can’t Stand Losing You” followed, eventually hitting No. 2. The album itself peaked at No. 6. Outlandos d’Amour was certified gold by the RIAA in 1981 for sales of over 500,000 copies in the United States, and in 1984, the album attained platinum certification after shipping one million units.
Source: Wikipedia
Here they are at breakneck speed, with a blistering live performance of the album’s leadoff cut,”Next To You” in 1979:
