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| He's not wrong.... |
[Ed. Links to all sources besides the songs are at the bottom of the post.]
The Biggest Surprise: The extent to which the band operated like Leninist Russia.
The Most Famous Line-Up: Jones (guitar) Lou Gramm (vocals), Al Greenwood (keys), Ed Gagliardi (bass), Dennis Elliott (drums), and Ian McDonald (not clear, but I think guitar with them).
What You Need to Know
Foreigner’s chose their name deliberately, or at least after rejecting “Trigger.” Because the original membership split evenly at the time between Yanks and Brits, at least half the band would be foreign no matter where they played, or that was the joke. In his defense, Jones did start the band: “stranded” in New York and with his current band imploded, he assembled a new band one man/instrument at a time with encouragement from a friend named Bud Prager. The search for a lead singer became the final, fateful piece. Auditioning 40-50 singers finally knocked loose a memory of Gramm, an American from upstate New York he saw perform earlier with a band called Black Sheep. Gramm was “cleaning a public safety building from seven at night till about 11:30” when Jones came calling, but they hired him almost as soon as he stepped out of the booth. Once they launched – which would take some time and something like Prager’s life savings – they could neither stop churning out hits – e.g., “It Feels Like the First Time” and “Cold As Ice” from their 1977 eponymous debut and the title track and “Hot Blooded” from 1978’s Double Vision - nor hold the band together. Most of the band’s musical direction came from Gramm and Jones (though McDonald insists he got his hands in there as well), but Jones seized ownership of creative control early by way of a succession of purges – e.g., Gagliardi before Double Vision, then teaming up with Gramm to oust founding members (Greenwood and McDonald) on the way to making the band a four-piece and recording 4 (a name with multiple, fairly dull connotations), the band’s biggest album, in 1981 (ft. “Juke Box Hero,” “Urgent,” and “Waiting for a Girl Like You”).
Even Gramm eventually strained against the short leash Jones kept on the band. Feeling stifled (paraphrase, “I was tired of singing someone else’s songs”), he recorded a solo album (with the single, “Midnight Blue”), which, no shock, Jones resented for sounding too much like Foreigner. According to Behind the Music’s account, the lead single for 1984’s Agent Provocateur, “I Want to Know What Love Is,” caused the final break…but it takes a strained narrative to hold that together – specifically, that the “hard-rocking” Foreigner recoiled at the idea of attaching their name to a ballad. I’m trying to square that against the many ballads in Foreigner’s oeuvre going back to their debut fucking album with “Woman Oh Woman” and “Fool for You Anyway” (also, what was “Waiting for a Girl Like You” on 4?). After a couple decades, some profound health scares for both Jones and Gramm (and Gramm’s was/is rough, though not as rough as Gagliardi’s actual death), the band still plays, and Jones finally achieved his dream of absolute creative control.
My Favorite Anecdote:
Gramm on the controversial album cover for Head Games (third album, and the least successful from their hey-day; picture above):
“Part of that was because of the cover. The song Head Games was banned by a lot of radio stations after the cover of the album came out. Today, that would not have even been a problem. But in the Bible Belt, the cover of the cute little girl in the boys' bathroom erasing her number off the wall...They didn't see the humor in that. It wasn't supposed to even be sexy. She was sexy....she was cute… She was erasing her phone number off the wall of the boys' bathroom and that's all it was. A big deal was made out of that and it really hurt our sales."
Why They Didn’t Make the Island
With as little disrespect as possible, Foreigner always struck me as the cheesiest band of this bunch - yes, that’s with Styx in the mix. Too many of lyrics are laughable (or cringey AF; see “Love Has Taken Its Toll”), and listening to Gramm stretch bad writing to fit the music doesn’t help. The predictability of the guitar combined with rhythm structures that don’t have any bounce in them probably turn me off more than anything else.
Other Featured Songs: “You’re All I Am” (another ballad; nice one, too) and “Blue Morning, Blue Day,” another song I almost like. I like them best when they play off type. "Break It Up," more or may not have achieved that feat, but it got some props somewhere I read...
Most Foreigner Song: “Hot Blooded,” where they don’t fuck around and nail the hard-rock energy.
Sources
Wikipedia
The Most Famous Line-Up: Jones (guitar) Lou Gramm (vocals), Al Greenwood (keys), Ed Gagliardi (bass), Dennis Elliott (drums), and Ian McDonald (not clear, but I think guitar with them).
What You Need to Know
Foreigner’s chose their name deliberately, or at least after rejecting “Trigger.” Because the original membership split evenly at the time between Yanks and Brits, at least half the band would be foreign no matter where they played, or that was the joke. In his defense, Jones did start the band: “stranded” in New York and with his current band imploded, he assembled a new band one man/instrument at a time with encouragement from a friend named Bud Prager. The search for a lead singer became the final, fateful piece. Auditioning 40-50 singers finally knocked loose a memory of Gramm, an American from upstate New York he saw perform earlier with a band called Black Sheep. Gramm was “cleaning a public safety building from seven at night till about 11:30” when Jones came calling, but they hired him almost as soon as he stepped out of the booth. Once they launched – which would take some time and something like Prager’s life savings – they could neither stop churning out hits – e.g., “It Feels Like the First Time” and “Cold As Ice” from their 1977 eponymous debut and the title track and “Hot Blooded” from 1978’s Double Vision - nor hold the band together. Most of the band’s musical direction came from Gramm and Jones (though McDonald insists he got his hands in there as well), but Jones seized ownership of creative control early by way of a succession of purges – e.g., Gagliardi before Double Vision, then teaming up with Gramm to oust founding members (Greenwood and McDonald) on the way to making the band a four-piece and recording 4 (a name with multiple, fairly dull connotations), the band’s biggest album, in 1981 (ft. “Juke Box Hero,” “Urgent,” and “Waiting for a Girl Like You”).
Even Gramm eventually strained against the short leash Jones kept on the band. Feeling stifled (paraphrase, “I was tired of singing someone else’s songs”), he recorded a solo album (with the single, “Midnight Blue”), which, no shock, Jones resented for sounding too much like Foreigner. According to Behind the Music’s account, the lead single for 1984’s Agent Provocateur, “I Want to Know What Love Is,” caused the final break…but it takes a strained narrative to hold that together – specifically, that the “hard-rocking” Foreigner recoiled at the idea of attaching their name to a ballad. I’m trying to square that against the many ballads in Foreigner’s oeuvre going back to their debut fucking album with “Woman Oh Woman” and “Fool for You Anyway” (also, what was “Waiting for a Girl Like You” on 4?). After a couple decades, some profound health scares for both Jones and Gramm (and Gramm’s was/is rough, though not as rough as Gagliardi’s actual death), the band still plays, and Jones finally achieved his dream of absolute creative control.
My Favorite Anecdote:
Gramm on the controversial album cover for Head Games (third album, and the least successful from their hey-day; picture above):
“Part of that was because of the cover. The song Head Games was banned by a lot of radio stations after the cover of the album came out. Today, that would not have even been a problem. But in the Bible Belt, the cover of the cute little girl in the boys' bathroom erasing her number off the wall...They didn't see the humor in that. It wasn't supposed to even be sexy. She was sexy....she was cute… She was erasing her phone number off the wall of the boys' bathroom and that's all it was. A big deal was made out of that and it really hurt our sales."
Why They Didn’t Make the Island
With as little disrespect as possible, Foreigner always struck me as the cheesiest band of this bunch - yes, that’s with Styx in the mix. Too many of lyrics are laughable (or cringey AF; see “Love Has Taken Its Toll”), and listening to Gramm stretch bad writing to fit the music doesn’t help. The predictability of the guitar combined with rhythm structures that don’t have any bounce in them probably turn me off more than anything else.
Other Featured Songs: “You’re All I Am” (another ballad; nice one, too) and “Blue Morning, Blue Day,” another song I almost like. I like them best when they play off type. "Break It Up," more or may not have achieved that feat, but it got some props somewhere I read...
Most Foreigner Song: “Hot Blooded,” where they don’t fuck around and nail the hard-rock energy.
Sources
Wikipedia
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