Outlandos d'Amour

by

The Police

Edit

As I listened to "Outlandos" on my iPod last night, after I dutifully purchased all of the newly remastered editions on CD, I felt the need to wax rhapsodic.

Listening to these impossibly crisp and detailed recordings, I remembered, as if it was yesterday, buying the LP. After "Ghost In The Machine", I had become a monstrous Police fan. I lived and breathed the Police. I went back and bought their first three records, and proceeded to memorize them.

This will not be an unbiased review.

I made a copy of the LP, on a cassette tape, Years later, when CDs came out, I repurchased the Police catalog, as I have with each remastering. The box set goes without saying. VHS tapes, laserdiscs, and now DVD's. I have listened to them in every conceivable media.

As the million-miles-an-hour "Next To You" opened the album, I was taken back to my high school and early college days. These guys were supposed to be punk, or punk-ish, but like The Clash, they threw more sounds...more textures into the mix. Sting occasionally sings with a tonsil-thrashing punk howl, but the airy voice always reverts to a classic melody some time before the final chorus. Andy Summers' guitars sounded like no one else at the time, and Stewart Copeland's polyphonic drumming put him head-and-shoulders above the DIY crowd.

Calming myself down just a bit, I must admit this is NOT a perfect record. "Masoko Tanga" sounds like three guys messing around in a studio with a tape running. The "Sally" interlude is funny the first few times, then gets kinda tedious. "Hole In My Life" is too long.

Who cares? "Next To You", "So Lonely" and the stone-cold-classic the first-time-you-heard-it "Roxanne" open the album in a way few debuts ever have. An instantly recognizable, commercial yet edgy, punk yet not punk, individual and unique, defiant statement proclaiming their arrival.

"Peanuts" ends side one in a manic flurry.

I could go on, about comparing the near-delicate guitar sounds in "So Lonely" to the beefy thrash in parts of "Born In The 50s", about the reggae-ification of beats that twisted conventional tunes into extraordinary ones, the nimble bass...

And this was just the beginning. The first of only five albums. The Police lit up the pop world for half a decade and then split. The three of them apart were never as potent as the three of them together, but seeing them together at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony offered us a delicious, delirious reminder of their talent.

The Police was one of my favorite bands when I was in junior high about eighteen years ago. At the time, much of my listening was devoted to the last two albums, Ghost in the Machine and Synchronicity. It wasn't until later that I began to appreciate the first three albums including this one, their first. Practically every label seems to have been applied to Outlandos d' Amour including neo-punk, new wave, rock and roll, and reggae (only partly, of course). Much of the reggae sound comes from the final song, "Masoko Tanga". Others are more on the rock side such as "Next to You", and "Truth Hits Everybody". Also in the mix is one of the more stranger songs you're likely to hear, "Be My Girl--Sally". It's strange in its arrangement and subject matter. If you haven't heard it, I won't spoil it by revealing any more. Moreover, this was the launching pad for a great band, one that deicded to burn out, rather than fade away. Enjoy.