Outlandos d'Amour

The Police made their first album on a budget of 1,500 pounds borrowed from Miles Copeland, recording whenever the studio had free time over about six months. Chris and Nigel Gray engineered. Miles Copeland took Roxanne to A&M the day after he first heard it, and when the follow-up single Can't Stand Losing You became the band's first hit, the label approved the finished album. Miles had wanted to call it Police Brutality, and the French-sounding title is a loose translation of Outlaws of Love.

Roxanne failed to chart on its first release and Can't Stand Losing You reached number 42 in the UK. The album peaked at number six in the UK in October 1979 and number 23 on the US Billboard 200. It is the only Police album that did not reach number one in the UK. Rolling Stone's Tom Carson was unimpressed at release, but AllMusic's Greg Prato later called it one of the finest debuts to come out of the punk and new wave movement, and Rolling Stone placed it at number 434 on its 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums.