05. Foreigner - Foreigner (1977)
Foreigner were without doubt one of the flagship bands of AOR and their debut album the eponymous Foreigner ended up being one of the biggest selling rock albums of 1977 and in fact if anybody were to ask me which is the best starter album for a novice AOR listener then I’d certainly point them in this direction. The album achieved a whopping 5x platinum status in the US alone and gave the band three hit singles in “Feels Like the First Time” “Cold As Ice” and “Long, Long Way from Home” with the first two here actually cracking the higher echelons of the Billboard top 10. What makes the Foreigner debut and indeed their first four albums appealing, is the simple fact that the band found an accomplished rock-orientated formula without any excess baggage. The majority of the tracks on their albums could often be considered ‘singles material’ because the band had a strong knack of consistently writing material that sounded like it was readily available for radio airplay.
What made Foreigner interesting was the cultural background of its original members, It contained frontman
Lou Gramm who I should point out here was one of the finest exponents of what an AOR frontman should be all about, along with fellow Americans
Al Greenwood and
Ed Gagliardi. They combined with three British musicians
Mick Jones the other pivotal member with Lou Gramm,
Ian McDonald and
Dennis Elliot, and it was the first two that really gave the band their unique character. Mick Jones had originally been in
Spooky Tooth the old organ-dominated hard rock band, that had certainly been highly influential on
Deep Purple and it’s clear that this sound was injected into the veins of the band. Ian McDonald (keyboards/guitar) had been in probably the finest line-up that
King Crimson ever put out and certainly came into the Foreigner set-up with the biggest reputation.
The ten tracks on the album despite their obvious straight-forward rock approach, are actually very well crafted rock pieces that really do stand the test of time and have a lot more depth musically than they’re often given credit for and none come any better than the opening “Feels Like the First Time” which feels like the band’s very own blueprint on how the rest of their output would sound. The following “Cold as Ice” has an even more instant sound with its piano intro quickly being supplanted by the instant Lou Gramm vocal style, something that the
John Wetton Asia era material would evoke as well, both these tracks are great driving arena rock staples. If the band had found the perfect blueprint for their sound with the album opener, they then added an even more durable one in “Long, Long Way from Home” which also introduced us to their use of a sax/synth highlight. “Woman Oh Woman” sounds like a staple AOR track, as does the heavier “At War with the World” and “I Need You“ is a strong album closer.
Not all the songs on the album though do it for me, as songs like “Headknocker” sound like typical bar room material and this type of thing was done far better by the likes of the
J.Geils Band, but its thumping style does keep it in the tone of the album material. “Fool for You Anyway” ends up sounding like one of those warm album tracks often employed by American artists of the 1970s, not a bad track at all but not overly suited to Foreigner in this instance. The keyboards and synths of the band are not dominantly used like some of their fellow bands, but instead they’re well-crafted to fully enhance the band’s sound and feature in pivotal points of several songs. This example is best highlighted on a track like “The Damage is Done” which despite being led by Lou Gramm’s vocals ends up as being one of the most accomplished songs on the whole album and it’s an effort not to be missed.
The oddity on the album and certainly one of the most interesting tracks the band ever put out comes in the form of “Starrider” which is actually sung by Mick Jones and the song smacks of that epic 1970s proggy/pomp rock feel and only serves to make me wonder why the band didn’t attempt more material like this. Perhaps omitting this type of material is one of the reasons why the band were quickly embraced, as their lack of interest in tinkering with a progressive rock sound and adopting a far more basic hard rock line in the form of AOR was far better suited to the modern musical terrain.
It could be argued that Foreigner were in many ways the first manufactured AOR band, quite simply due to that fact that the band members were geared up to produce a sound that worked perfectly with radio airplay and would be able to shift millions of records, a formula that would soon be the prime driver behind the AOR shield for most bands. This belief is supported by the fact that the band totally shied away from the progressive roots of both Mick Jones and Ian McDonald with the exception of one song and into strictly radio friendly material.
With this album the band found their perfect niche stylistically, they never had the smooth sound of say
Toto or
Journey and they certainly didn’t have the panache of
Styx, but what they did provide us with was a solid line that straddled hard rock meets AOR combined with extremely catchy songs that were all produced in the most accomplished manner. This was largely thanks to the grittier sounding vocals of Lou Gramm combined with the rougher around the edges feel of the band’s sound, compared to the flawless sound most other AOR bands would aspire to. The band not only had a consistency in the type of material that they were writing, but also in their ability to turn out multi-platinum albums year after year starting with their debut and this certainly showed that they were never going to get bogged down with needless perfection like
Boston who ended up giving us albums once in a blue moon.