THE VOICE OF FOREIGNER NOW SINGING A VERY DIFFRENT TUNE

https://youtu.be/0P3yeTqRYvI?si=DKoiu_hlWiHR8DCl

Right from when I was a teenager I positively adored the music of Foreigner. The music press was never kind to this anglo-american outfit, even though guitarist Mick Jones and legendary vocalist Lou Gramm were one of the most enduring and fruitful partnerships in the history of rock. 

Considering how fitful Jones is known to
treat his fellow bandmates, it says a lot for the decency and loyalty of Gramm that he lasted in Foreigner, at least officially, for some 26 years, from 1977 through to 2003.

Not that there was much new music in the
last ten years of that period from Foreigner, the only album of new material was `Mr. Moonlight` from 1994, and with the exception of a few songs like `Under the Gun` and `White Lie` it is a rather tiresome retread of the rock love ballad style which Foreigner had already defined many times before on previous albums. 

Starting with the patchy 1984 album called
`Agent Provocateur`, which yielded the great power balled `I Want to Know What Love Is`, Foreigner tended to go too far in the ballad direction, much to the annoyance of a lot of the fans who were more in favour of Foreigners`s Free and Humble Pie style rock`n`roll, and not all the atmospheric stuff which overtook albums like Agent P and Gramm`s solo albums in the late 1980`s, one of which was made after he quit Foreigner the `first` time. 

Songs such as `Women` and `Dirty White Boy` off the hit and miss 1979 album Head Games remain the quintessential expressions of Gramm/ Jones rock chemistry, they really are such good grainy rhythm and blues songs.

And how could I miss `Hot Blooded` off the `Double Vision` album from 1978, and the very underrated Chuck Berry riff-a-fied title track? In fact I`d have to say that the first four Foreigner albums were as close as you get to perfectly executed prog-rock stoked rhythm and blues, starting with the eponymous self titled debut in 1977 and ending with the Mutt Lange tweaked opus `4`, from 1981. 

There is too many good songs from these four albums to list individually, however I have to say that every one of those albums has got its artistic flaws and a few too many fillers. 

The Gramm/ Jones partnership was on tenterhooks when Foreigner recorded the 1987 album `Inside Information`,which actually wasn`t a bad album whatsoever considering the acrimony and tension in the studio between guitar maestro and singing maestro.

The album actually boogies a lot better than `Agent Provocateur` or `4` from earlier in the 80`s. If you want to hear a great Humble Pie tune, then have a listen to `Counting Every Minute` off Inside Information. 

How guitarist Jones saw fit to leave this number off the two CD Foreigner anthology on Rhino Records is beyond reason, because it is the best guitar riff Jones writ for Foreigner during the entire 80`s. 

After Inside Information, Gramm unofficially `ran off` to record a second solo album and form a legendary AOR outfit called Shadow King, which resulted in one self titled album in 1991. 

Jones and the remaining members of Foreigner recorded the album `Unusual Heat`, with new vocalist Johnny Edwards, which also come out in 1991. 

The song `Lowdown and Dirty` off this album is truly a brilliant hard rock song, and `Flesh Wound` is also a cutting rock groove. 

The new Foreigner and Shadow King both didn`t make it through to the next year though, Jones and Gramm decided to bury the hatchet to record three new songs for a greatest hits compilation that was released in 1992. 

Thats when it become clear just how ruthless and domineering Mick Jones could be, because long termer bass guitarist Rick Wills, who joined Foreigner in 1979 for Head Games and Dennis Elliott, the foundation drummer of the band, were both given the flick pass just like Jones had done to the other two foundation members, Ian McDonald and Al Greenwood, from the original six piece Foreigner days. 

Since 1992, there has probably been about twenty members come and go out of Foreigner, most of them probably can't handle Jone`s mood swings, Jason Bonham, son of the late great Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, couldn`t even put up with the revolving door of keyboardists and guitarists which was getting a workout for ten years straight. 

Any bandleader like Mick Jones who cant keep band members like Jason Bonham has really got to look at themselves in the mirror and acknowledge that they are doing something wrong, either professionally or personally when interacting with their bandmates. 

I have to say that Kelly Hansen, the Lou Gramm soundalike who replaced Gramm in 2003, is very good and very convincing. 

I guess if he can put up with Mick Jones then that's all that matters for the future of Foreigner, presuming there is one. 

The latest and only album which features Hansen on lead vocals, `Cant Slow Down` is a lot more convincing than `Mr. Moonlight`, but it certainly isn`t up there with `4` or `Double Vision`.

Lou Gramm made a triumphant return to
recording music with a rock gospel album
in 2009 with a self titled album under the
banner of the Lou Gramm Band. His two
brothers, Ben and Richard, play on here,
as well as Andy Knoll on keyboards and
Don Manusco on guitar. 

Amazing album, songs like `So Great`, `Redeemer`, `Its Not Too Late`, `(I Wanna) Testify` and the anthematic cool soul of Billy Preston`s original `That`s The Way God Planned It` are not overdone with bible bashery and lyrical zealism, but instead are refreshingly contemporary interpretations of spirituality played out in a rock band backdrop.

Lou Gramm has taken the rock path less
travelled with this latest diversion to gospel rock, but he probably has kept himself
one step ahead of the band which he was
instrumental on putting on the map back
in the days when he was singing about mini skirts and not discovering the love of God.