(NOTE: Music That Sucks is the correct opinion of the author. Should you not like what I say, please kindly leave a note in the comment box I will cram up your ass in the near future.)
Fifteen installments of MTS, and a fifth of them are on corporate rock bands. This may lead the reader to believe that I have a hard-on for brow-beating the type of groups that were known as "the establishment" back in their day. What the reader would fail to realize that while fun, MTS can also be very painful. You see, everytime I do an induction, various memories come back to me of my experiences with each group.
Take Foreigner for instance. From the moment I got over Michael Bolton and said to myself "Foreigner is going to be next", to the research process (actually putting "Foreigner" in Google, sifting through many useless official and crappy websites until I find something I can use), to actually writing the piece and then finishing it and stewing in my own crapulance; I have s**tty Foreigner songs playing in my head like a juke box. The same goes for every other write-up; a weaker man would have found himself painting his walls with his own s**t a long time ago...but I digress. Let's get to the reason why you are here: Foreigner.
Foreigner's start begins with King Crimson's demise; former member of the later, Ian MacDonald, got together with session guitarist Mick Jones in 1976 and decided King Crimson didn't quite suck enough. The two Limeys then added four Americans; Lou Gramm to front the band, Al Greenwood on the electronic ivories, Ed Gagliardi on bass, and Dennis Elliot on drums. Thus begins the saga of over-hyped, methodically produced corporate rock music.
Their self-titled debut album hit the shelves in 1977, and stayed in the Top 20 for over a year. From the onset it was obvious Foreigner was about riding trends and contributing nothing of worth of the overall art of music. Asinine Foreigner singles flooded the airwaves. "Cold As Ice" sounds just like anything Styx, REO Speedwagon, Bad Company, Boston, Journey, etc were also doing at the time. "Feels Like The First Time" is actually a misnomer, as it is widely believed that singer Lou Gramm hasn't even felt a first time; with a woman anyway.
More of the same mass-produced horses**t on their sophmore effort Double Vision. The album sells over five million copies thanks to the success of the title track (#2 on the singles charts) and "Hot Blooded" (#3). If I may veer of the track for the moment, Lou Gramm sounds like a straight-up bitch. He screeches Foreigner's douchy little numbers like a woman who is in the midst of heavy menstral flow. Make sure you pick up the super-absorbent maxis, Miss Gramm. Then again, Steve Perry and Dennis DeYoung also sing like bitches, so it's par for the corporate course.
While on that subject, it irks me when fans of groups like Foreigner call their music "hard rock". Their is absolutely nothing hard about them. Viagra couldn't make these guys hard. They're as soft as Michael Jackson looking at a beautiful woman's grown body.
Back to the Foreigner story, in 1978 they headlined the Reading Music Festival. There's a reason why the '78 Reading Music Festival is not in the same league as the orginal Woodstock, Monteray, or even Altimont. Gagliardi was gone and replaced by former Roxy Music member Rick Wells. Oh yeah, it's just keeps on getting better. 1979 brought us Foreigner's third album Head Games, which featured two Top 20 hits: the title track and "Dirty White Boy". No wonder these guys are big below the Mason/Dixon. Guess what? These songs sound exactly like their other hits. Find a money-making formula and beat in the ground, I always say.
Changing with the times, yet adding nothing to them; 1981's 4 is heavy on the synth-rock. Two members, MacDonald and Greenwood, part ways with the group. 4 ends up selling six million copies and went to #1 on the album charts. As for singles, it's more of the same pussy music with songs like "Juke Box Hero", "Urgent" (#4), and "Waiting For A Girl Like You" (#2). You could give them two turntables and a microphone and these guys would make the same s**tty music over and over again.
After a "greatest hits" LP in '82 creatively titled Records, the prototypical prison bitches were back at it in 1984 with Agent Provocateur, which contained the one song that I just may consider the worst in the history of corporate rock; "I Want To Know What Love Is".
Gramm is at his queifish worst here, as the music video for the song illustrates. He is practically on his knees (a postion, I would imagine, not unfamiliar to a bitch of his magnitude) begging some chick to show him what love is. Enough with the gay screeching and needy lyrics already! Had they written something like "I don't give a fuck what love is, I want you to blow me", I might actually have some respect for Foreigner. Nahhh!
The members took time away from the band in the mid '80s to pursue solo projects, all of which sucked as much ass as the group itself. In '87 Inside Information went platinum, but Foreigner's reign as a commercial hit making machine was mercifully at an end. Most of their recent albums have been reissues of their hits.
As if anyone needed it, this essay is further proof of why corporate rock sucks a long fat dick. I'm 100% positive that more corporate rock bands will get proper inductions into MTS, but I personally need to take a break from this genre; it's giving me a migraine. At least I got three of the main offenders out of the way.
Foreigner, music...that sucks!
