Legendary rock band Foreigner was named in in reference to its Anglo-American line-up — and the band’s magical chemistry came from the special relationship between Mick Jones, a British guitarist, and Lou Gramm, a singer born in Rochester, New York.
Jones, Foreigner’s leader, was a brilliant songwriter. And in Gramm, he had the perfect foil — a voice with grit and soul, reminiscent of Free and Bad Company legend Paul Rodgers.
Jones created Foreigner as a classically styled hard rock band made for radio, and the first, eponymous album was launched at an opportune time.
While punk rock was big news in 1977, the year’s biggest selling acts included Fleetwood Mac, Peter Frampton and Boston. The Foreigner album sold four million copies in America, with two top ten hits in Feels Like The First Time and the spine-tingling Cold As Ice.
Second album Double Vision was another big seller, with Hot Blooded, a raunchy anthem, reaching No.3 in the US and finding an unlikely fan in John Lydon, the former Sex Pistols singer, who said that this song made him “jump around like a lunatic”.
Foreigner’s momentum continued with 1979’s Head Games and its thumping hit Dirty White Boy. But it was with their fourth album — released in 1981, and titled simply 4 — that they reached their peak.
Jones had co-produced Head Games with Roy Thomas Baker, famed for his work on classic albums by Queen, Journey and The Cars. On the 4 album, Jones teamed up with Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange, the producer of AC/DC’s Highway To Hell and Back In Black. And together, they honed Foreigner’s sound to perfection.
There was heavy rock power in the album’s opening double-whammy: Nightlife, crackling with after-dark energy, and Juke Box Hero, a high-tension, crunching anthem carrying the dreams of every wannabe rock ’n’ roll star.
The intensity continued in Urgent, its funky groove given added sizzle with a wild sax solo from Motown legend Jr. Walker.
Break It Up was this album’s Cold As Ice.
Girl On The Moon had a dreamlike quality and some wonderfully subtle guitar licks from Jones in the verses.
And in the ballad Waiting For a Girl Like You the extraordinary emotional depth in Lou Gramm’s vocal was enhanced by sighing backing vocals from Lange, and subtle, drifting synthesizer textures from Thomas Dolby, a wizard of electronic music who had a hit in 1982 with She Blinded Me With Science.
Waiting For A Girl Like You — acclaimed by Justin Hawkins of The Darkness as “the greatest rock ballad of all time” — set a record by holding the No.2 spot on the US chart for 10 weeks without ever hitting No.1.
But the album did make it the top, and went on to sell more than seven million copies in the US alone.
Foreigner’s biggest hit came in 1985 with another ballad, the gospel-influenced I Want To Know What Love Is, which hit number one on both sides of the Atlantic.
But what they created in 4 — released in the same year as Journey’s Escape — was a perfect AOR album.
