About 15 years ago albums by pop groups were just cheap exploitations of singles—you'd put one or two hits together with eight or 10 mediocre tracks and that was an album. Along came the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and it was a whole different ballgame; they'd put out an album with (in some cases) 15 songs of which 13 were of consistent good quality, and suddenly most groups felt they had to do the same. The Police, despite their talent, have reverted the back to the old formula where you only need one or two good songs per album, and from initial indications audiences are lapping it up.
Can't Stand Losing You is a pretty good rock 'n' reggae tune, and Roxanne is exceptionally good and deserving of hit singledom, but I must add that the rest of ["Outlandos d'Amour"] is strictly third rate…. [The Police are] a rock group with a reggae twist, occasionally attempting New Wave (Next To You] and vaguely political (Born in the Fifties almost makes it but doesn't quite) tunes. I suppose for a first album by a new group, having two hot tracks isn't bad, but considering the pre-album hype I was expecting maybe the next big thing, and I'm sitting here instead wondering if Roxanne is just a fluke.
Jon Tiven, in his review of "Outlandos d'Amour," in Audio (© 1979, CBS Publications, The Consumer Publishing Division of CBS Inc.), Vol. 63, June, 1979, p. 115.
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