Foreigner\u2019s fourth album, the imaginatively-titled 4<\/i>, represented the band\u2019s commercial apex, hitting #1 and spinning off three Top Ten singles. The thing about summitting a peak, though, is there\u2019s only one direction left to go afterwards. Ninety-five percent of the tracks the band has issued since 4<\/i> are obscure enough to qualify as potential Final Jeopardy answers.<\/p>\n
There are reasons for that.<\/p>\n
Venturing beyond 4<\/i> in Foreigner\u2019s catalog requires determination bordering on masochism. Whatever their flaws\u2014and they are many\u2014those first four albums all had at least a song or two, a hook or two, a moment or two that earned them a measure of attention. There was a certain undeniable flair present in the group\u2019s dogged devotion to basic, bombastic arena rock that appealed to a certain kind of listener. And indeed, on the strength of its big single\u2014the super-sized power ballad and #1 hit \u201cI Want To Know What Love Is\u201d\u2014Agent Provocateur<\/i> made it to #4 on the charts. If that was all there was to the story\u2014oh, who am I kidding. The band simply never recovered from this album.<\/p>\n
Foreigner\u2014once again comprised of Mick Jones (guitars\/keys), Lou Gramm (vocals), Dennis Elliott (drums), Rick Wills (bass), and a thundering herd of session keyboardists\u2014went into Agent<\/i> looking for a second bite of the multi-platinum success they\u2019d achieved with 4<\/i>. Their first choice of producer, Trevor Horn (Yes, Seal), lasted a few months before bailing, replaced by Paul Sadkin (Thompson Twins, Duran Duran), who ended up co-producing with Jones.<\/p>\n
And while with Foreigner the production typically rates little mention, it plays a major role here. As deeply flawed an album as Agent Provocateur<\/i> is, the mortal blow is struck by its so-very-very-\u201980s sound design, a horror show of tinny drums, frosty synths and over-processed guitar. (You could call it Robocop production: more machine than man.) It\u2019s tempting to blame Horn and\/or Sadkin for this, but the fact is that Jones has always had the final say when it comes to Foreigner\u2019s sound. <\/p>\n
The group does their best on album opener \u201cTooth And Nail\u201d to meld their typical heavy, blues-based rock with a maximally processed-and-synthed sound; imagine The Firm with no Paul Rodgers, no Jimmy Page, and the anonymous keyboardist from an \u201980s pop band sitting in. This marriage of opposites fares better on second track \/ second single \u201cThat Was Yesterday,\u201d which reached #12 on the strength of its potent hooks, even if the synths could give the Human Torch frostbite.<\/p>\n
The track that would be revealed over time as both a high and a low point of Foreigner\u2019s career was also Agent<\/i>\u2019s lead single: \u201cI Want To Know What Love Is.\u201d After the chart success of 4<\/i>\u2019s big ballad \u201cWaiting For A Girl Like You,\u201d the label pressured the band for another, and despite some misgivings, they delivered in spades. Is \u201cI Want To Know What Love Is\u201d melodramatic, overblown, and wayyy over the top? Hello? This is Foreigner we\u2019re talking about. But it\u2019s also the finest vocal performance of Gramm\u2019s career, with genuine nuance and emotion.<\/p>\n
Now, quick\u2014name another song on this album.<\/p>\n
Yeah, didn\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n
As if reacting to the softness of The Big Ballad, Foreigner proceeds to deliver three straight rockers, all of them misfires. \u201cGrowing Up The Hard Way\u201d tries for pathos with a yearning synth line but jumps the melodic tracks with a clunky chorus that feels borrowed from another song entirely. \u201cReaction To Action\u201d turns up the macho\u2014and the guitars\u2014but like its predecessor has zero flow or substance; it\u2019s strictly generic Bluster Rock. And while \u201cStranger In My Own House\u201d shows some fire in its chunky, Zeppelin-esque riffage, its overblown vocal arrangement also features the kind of lyric the facepalm emoji was invented for: \u201cI\u2019ll huff and I\u2019ll puff and I\u2019ll blow this house down.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next trio of tracks comprise a mid-tempo snoozefest drenched in \u201980s synths. \u201cA Love In Vain\u201d is the best of the bunch thanks to Wills\u2019 jumpy, engaging bass line, but underneath the melodramatic excesses of \u201cDown On Love\u201d and \u201cTwo Different Worlds,\u201d they\u2019re still faceless \u201980s arena-pop. Closing things out, \u201cShe\u2019s Too Tough\u201d ups the tempo while reverting to Jones and Gramm\u2019s default persona of Victimized Man Whining About His Fate. The one real question is whether the lyric is more pathetic or dimwitted (\u201cIf I do what I’m told \/ She’s gooder than gold to me \/ She’s too tough\u201d). <\/p>\n
Despite that obvious candidate, the album\u2019s actual low point turned out to be the credits. Gramm has said that he and Jones\u2014frequent songwriting collaborators\u2014would typically finish a song and then discuss what the split would be on credit and royalties. In the case of \u201cI Want To Know What Love Is,\u201d Jones did substantial work on the song before inviting Gramm in to help finish it up. When they were done, they each wrote down on a slip of paper what they thought the split should be. Gramm suggested 65 for Jones and 35 for himself. Jones proposed 95 for himself and 5 for Gramm. \u201cI was so stunned and crushed that he’d think I contributed next to nothing to that song,\u201d claims a crestfallen Gramm<\/a><\/u>. \u201cAll I could think of was greed\u2026 We all knew it was gonna be a smash\u2026 I said \u2018Five, Mick? You should just keep it all.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n Which he did<\/i>\u2014whereupon the song, credited to Jones alone, went to #1. It remains to this day the band\u2019s top-selling track. \u201cThat put a wedge in us that was the beginning of the end,\u201d says Gramm<\/a><\/u>, and indeed, Jones and Gramm\u2019s relationship would never be the same. If 4<\/i> was the album that made Foreigner, its sequel Agent Provocateur<\/i> was the one that broke them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":35341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7739],"rating":[11205],"class_list":["post-47232","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-foreigner","rating-rating-d-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47232"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}