''To Lose My Life...'' (also known by extended title of ''To Lose My Life or Lose My Love'', or shortened as ''To Lose My Life'') is the debut album by the British

indie rock Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produ ...

band White Lies. It was released on 19 January 2009 by

Fiction Records Fiction Records is a British record label founded by Chris Parry in 1978, owned by Universal Music Group and based in the United Kingdom. It is best known for being the home of The Cure for over 20 years. It was originally a part of Polydor, ...

. The album was produced by Ed Buller and Max Dingel, and was recorded at ICP Studios in Belgium and Kore Studios in London. The album produced four singles: " Unfinished Business", "

Death Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...

" and " To Lose My Life", prior to its release, and " Farewell to the Fairground" in the months following. "Death" was reissued in June 2009, with "From the Stars" appearing as

iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mu ...

's " Single of the Week" during December 2008. The album was released in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

on 17 March 2009.

History and production

The album was recorded at ICP Studios in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

, and Kore Studios, Acton, west

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. It was produced by Ed Buller and Max Dingel, who previously worked with

Suede Suede (pronounced ) is a type of leather with a fuzzy, napped finish, commonly used for jackets, shoes, fabrics, purses, furniture, and other items. The term comes from the French , which literally means "gloves from Sweden". The term was fir ...

the Killers The Killers are an American rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingd ...

and

Glasvegas Glasvegas are a Scottish indie rock band from Glasgow. The band consists of James Allan (vocals), Rab Allan (lead guitar) and Paul Donoghue (bass guitar), with Swedish drummer Jonna Löfgren joining the group in 2010 until her departure in 2020 ...

. Further mixing was completed by

Alan Moulder Alan Moulder (born 11 June 1959) is an English record producer, mixing engineer, and audio engineer. Early life Moulder was born on 11 June 1959 in Boston, Lincolnshire. He was educated at Boston Grammar School. He had an interest in music from ...

. The album featured a 20-piece orchestra, later stated as a 25-piece, arranged by Buller. Upon entering the studio, the band only had five early

demo Demo, usually short for demonstration, may refer to: Music and film *Demo (music), a song typically recorded for reference rather than release * ''Demo'' (Behind Crimson Eyes), a 2004 recording by the band Behind Crimson Eyes * ''Demo'' (Deafhea ...

versions of tracks "

", "E.S.T.", " Farewell to the Fairground", "From the Stars" and " Unfinished Business"; the rest of the songs were written and recorded during studio time.

Promotion and release

On 22 September 2008, the band played nine of the 10 released tracks at

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

's Night and Day Café. Reviewing the gig, ''NME'' described the album by its provisional title of ''To Lose My Life or Lose My Love''. The album was released on 19 January 2009 in the United Kingdom on CD and 12-inch vinyl, as well as in a number of other

limited-edition The terms special edition, limited edition, and variants such as deluxe edition, or collector's edition, are used as a marketing incentive for various kinds of products, originally published products related to the arts, such as books, prints, r ...

forms, including one housed in a green cardboard box.

Pre-order A pre-order is an order placed for an item that has not yet been released. The idea for pre-orders came because people found it hard to get popular items in stores because of their popularity. Companies then had the idea to allow customers to r ...

s bought from

online retailer Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumers to directly buy goods or services from a seller over the Internet using a web browser or a mobile app. Consumers find a product of interest by visiting the website of the r ...

Play.com Rakuten.co.uk is a website owned by Rakuten, that operates as an online marketplace. The website does not sell any products directly, but instead allows third party sellers to sell their products. The website replaced Play.com, which was origin ...

were packaged in a

slipcase A slipcase is a five-sided box, usually made of high-quality cardboard, into which binders, books or book sets are ''slipped'' for protection, leaving the spine exposed. Special editions of books are often slipcased for a stylish appearance when ...

exclusive to that website, while the

iTunes Store The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,00 ...

released the album with a number of

bonus track An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records coll ...

s and

remix A remix (or reorchestration) is a piece of media which has been altered or contorted from its original state by adding, removing, or changing pieces of the item. A song, piece of artwork, book, video, poem, or photograph can all be remixes. The o ...

es previously only found as

B-sides The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record company ...

. White Lies' official website packaged the first 500 purchases with a green companion booklet, containing studio pictures and individual essays written by members of the band and production team. The site also published the album in a deluxe

boxset A box set or (its original name) boxed set is a set of items (for example, a compilation of books, musical recordings, films or television programs) traditionally packaged in a box and offered for sale as a single unit. Music Artists and bands ...

, which contained the album on six 7-inch vinyl discs, along with an extra 7" containing demo versions of "The Price of Love" and "Nothing to Give". On 13 February 2009, the band announced the release of an

instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...

version of the album, free with iTunes and physical purchases. The album's artwork was nominated alongside 49 others for

Best Art Vinyl Best Art Vinyl is an annual award that began in 2005. It celebrates artists and designers of vinyl record cover art. The nomination process begins in November and the winners are announced in January, and are exhibited at venues across the United K ...

2009 by website Artvinyl.com. Finishing seventh in the overall poll, the artwork was displayed in multiple exhibitions in Birmingham and London during November 2009. On 17 April 2010, the band released '' The Remixes'', an EP containing remixes of songs from ''To Lose My Life...''. The five-track EP was limited to 500 copies and released as part of

Record Store Day Record Store Day is an annual event inaugurated in 2007 and held on one Saturday (typically the third) every April and every Black Friday in November to "celebrate the culture of the independently owned record store". The day brings together fa ...

2009.

Reception

Critical

Initial critical response for ''To Lose My Life...'' was mixed. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 58, based on 17 reviews.

Chart performance

''To Lose My Life...'' debuted at No. 1 on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...

, making White Lies the first British act in 2009 to achieve a No. 1 album. It was the first 2009 album to debut at No. 1. Worldwide, the album charted in 11 countries, including six top 40 positions in Europe.

Track listing

Personnel

;White Lies * Harry McVeigh –

lead vocals The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of t ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

* Charles Cave –

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are use ...

* Jack Lawrence-Brown –

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

;Additional personnel * Ed Buller –

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...

* Max Dingel – production

Charts and certifications

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{Authority control White Lies (band) albums Albums produced by Ed Buller 2009 debut albums Fiction Records albums Geffen Records albums