Jacques Brel's first studio in five years (and eventually his last) was highly anticipated: there were one million prebooking for this album in 1977. The French edition of this album was also released in Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Scandinavia. Barclay shipped sealed containers to bonded warehouses in these countries so that records could be released simultaneously on November 17 in all markets. Only one day before release telex messages with the codes to the containers were sent out. The first pressing sold out rapidly, with sales of 1,700 albums per hour in Paris alone during the first day. A second pressing of one million was ordered by Barclay to anticipate the pre-Christmas sales rush. The album reached the first spot in the French charts and went platinum in 1981.
