The 500 - #428 - The Police - Outlandos D'Amour

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

Album # 428

Album Title: Outlandos D'Amour
Artist: The Police
Genre: Post Punk, New Wave, Reggae Rock
Recorded: January - June 1978
Released: November, 1978
My age at release: 13
How familiar was I with it before this week: Very
Song I am putting on my Spotify Mix: Roxanne
(Selected by my friend Oscar Macedo who also added insight as guest blogger)

My early teenage years were energized by three specific events that felt like seismic cultural shifts:

• The arrival of The Golden Age of Arcade Video Games. A time when aging pinball machines, pool or billiard tables were being rapidly replaced by arcade gaming consoles for Space Invaders, Asteroid, PacMan and Donkey Kong. 
• New Wave and Post Punk music began gaining mainstream acceptance. The commercial success of Blondie, The Cars and The Talking Heads resulted in the rebranding of 60s and 70s music as Classic Rock. 
• Music videos became wildly popular and became the format in which bands, particularly less established ones, promoted their material.

In Southwestern Ontario, access to music videos was spotty. In a time before MTV and MuchMusic, a weekly culture and news program out of Toronto called The New Music featuring hosts Jeanne Becker and J.D. Roberts. The program exposed me to a world of music different from the things I was hearing on Classic Rock radio from Detroit. I am almost certain that it was on an episode of The New Music that I first heard about The Police.

The New Music hosts JD Roberts & Jeanne Becker
photographed on Yonge Street, Toronto.

My adolescent hometown of Kingsville, Ontario, had a pool hall called, The Rak 'n Snak. Populated almost exclusively by pre-teens and teens, it had a jukebox, a half-dozen pool/billiard tables, pinball machines and two video games, Space Invaders and my personal favourite, Asteroids. If the the Asteroids machine cost Rak 'n Snak $500, I'm pretty sure I returned half their investment during the 78/79 school year... one quarter at a time. 

Asteroids Stand-up Console

The Rak 'n Snak also had a metal carousel beside the cash register with popular music for sale on cassette tape and I browsed it regularly. It was here that I saw my first copy of Outlandos D'Amour by The Police. 

Ironically, many of my views about The Police were captured by my friend Oscar, when he shared his thoughts about this album in a recent Facebook post. Oscar is my age and grew up in Sarnia. Consequently, we existed in a cultural ethos dominated by the same Detroit media. He agreed to have his views reposted here. 

Oscar "Porchee" Macedo
Plays Bass, Fishes Bass

This is what he said:
This band and this particular album was one that set that my young brain on fire. Is it rock? Is it punk? Is it reggae? I dunno...I love it...but, help!

To pigeon-hole it, I guess it was my first taste of New Wave. I was late, by all accounts, to this album. Local AM radio, dominated by the likes Melissa Manchester and Chicago, didn't have The Police on their rotation. Growing up in Sarnia, my proximity to Detroit FM radio only offered Foghat and Ted Nugent basically. The Police were too "punk" for rock radio. So, due to the limited available sources, I was a late bloomer to The Police.

Our "Internet" to music back then was The New Music television program. Again, I saw another band on there that intrigued me. It was The Police and it was Roxanne that grabbed my ear. What a song. Perhaps, arguably, Reggatta de Blanc was a better album but the impact of Outlandos stuck. As a young kid just learning bass, this was a biggie. Sting was a beast on the bass and an early inspiration to me. A singer AND bass player. Something I still have a tough time doing today. This album is most certainly very relevant still in my books.

Like Oscar, I "too" was a late-comer to Outlandos. It was be the third record by the band, Zenyatta Mondatta, that would be the first in my collection. There is an undeniable electricity this trio generates. Infact, I didn't need to listen to this record in order to write this post but, much like the game of Asteroids, I kept playing it over and over again.