And we’re back! This time, we are tackling Foreigner’s sophomore album, Double Vision.
Double Vision
Preconceived Notions: Foreigner always struck me as the bad boys of arena rock. They had a tougher sound than REO or Styx, and their lyrics and general persona gave off a vibe approaching callous indifference1. They were also a band you couldn’t escape—Foreigner had ten songs in the top 20 of the Billboard charts between 1977 and 1981. To me, Foreigner were just that—a singles band—and I never had much interest in exploring their albums. As for the singles? They were…fine. They folded seamlessly into an hour of classic rock radio on your car stereo without making you want to immediately reach for the tuner knob, which is worth something. Occasionally, in snippets, they transcended themselves—like the saxophone solo in “Urgent,” or the last 1:11 of “Cold as Ice2,”-and you wondered if they had the capacity for greatness. Unfortunately, you never ended up wondering for very long.
Merch I Owned: Records, of course. That was their greatest hits album, before they hit Mushville with “I Want to Know What Love Is.” Records is a relatively skinny comp—ten songs— but at least half of them are pretty damn good3. I had a dubbed cassette copy of 4 at one point, but the only deep track whose melody comes to me without checking is “Break It Up,” which features great 80’s keyboards.
Miscellany: Foreigner were originally going to be named Trigger, which is at least as dumb as the name they settled on. And one of the keyboard players for their first three albums is Ian McDonald, who was the keyboard player for King Crimson (!) on their first album and a guest musician on Red. Go listen to McDonald play alto saxophone on “Starless,” and then tell me how the hell he ended up here.
Track by Track:
Hot Blooded-This is one of the songs on Records I never cared for. The power chords are crunchy enough, but repetitive to the point of ridiculousness. And the lyrics, um, suck. It’s basically one long bad attempt to seduce a woman—lots of sneering come-on lines, like the guy in the bar you wish would finish his drink and go on home. I guess the music actually compliments the lyrics well, because you’re ready for the song to end long before it does, too.
Blue Morning, Blue Day—Foreigner, like a lot of arena rock bands, tend to start with a catchy (or sometimes not so catchy) riff and pound it in to the ground. This is one of the catchier ones4. Foreigner also frequently write about their girlfriend problems. This being the 70’s, that equates to petulant complaints of mistreatment— the “you’ve done me wrong, you just don’t understand me” school of songwriting. Unless you enjoy that sort of thing, I would suggest ditching the lyric sheet for most of this album.
You’re All I Am—It’s Slow Dance Time! The music is standard 70’s Prom and the verses are lousy with cliches, but Lou sings this one well. The chorus at least changes tempo and goes for a Billy Joel feel. And the dueling guitars on the bridge are nice— almost like they’re slow-dancing too.
Back Where You Belong— I like the beginning, especially the guitar interplay, but here the chorus sucks. It goes back to the verses for an extended thing, which is nice. I like the use of acoustic guitars throughout. The lyrics are more misogynistic claptrap. This is worse than the Eagles— geez, they have woman problems! Even so, this is probably the best deep cut so far.
Love Has Taken Its Toll—This has a swagger, a little boogie to it. Again, all of their songs are about how shitty they treat women. This is cock rock, but is isn’t dangerous—it’s actually a little bland. The chorus, again, is weaker than the verse, which is unfortunate, since a memorable chorus is probably the most important part of a traditionally structured song. Lyrically, this is basically a less charming version of AC/DC’s “Shot Down in Flames.” Most interesting5 is the abbreviated bridge, which features a saxophone and a melody that reminds me of The Carpenters “Yesterday Once More.” I honestly love The Carpeneters, but I’m guessing that’s not what Foreigner were going for here.
Double Vision—a pretty good song about pot. The song showcases one of Foreigner’s best talents— backing vocals—and the guitars crunch nicely for a change. Lou sings this one with some passion, but ultimately it’s the guitar riff and the harmonizing that you’ll remember.
Tramontane—an instrumental. Sounds like Alan Parsons with more guitars. Unlike most of the other songs on the album, this one was written by one of the two keyboard players (Greenwood), while the King Crimson guy (McDonald) plays a lyricon (an electronic wind instrument) that I’m guessing is making the cool high tones on the song, like something out of a 70’s science fiction show. It says something that it’s my favorite thing on the album so far.
I Have Waited So Long—Again, the lyrics blow. The laziest received rhymes you can think of. The music is minimalist slow dance for much of the song, or “Let’s just play the same chord for three minutes, howzabout?” if you want to be a little harsher. It does get better in the end— a little saxophone always makes things better.
Lonely Children—Foreigner do crunchy guitars and swanky guitars. This has both. And a social conscience? Sort of, in a ham-fisted fashion. I believe this is about teen runaways, but lines like “They may detest you, someday they may arrest you” isn’t going to win any Grammys. This song is just more evidence Mick Jones should not have written song lyrics.
Spellbinder— Turns out Lou has women problems, too. This is Foreigner’s version of Cliff Richard’s “Devil Woman.” And Richard’s song is better. I will say though, we have keyboards and a few strings and more stuff here—probably because it’s the album closer. Not awful.
Final Impressions/Evaluation: Despite the temptation to write something snarky6, I think it’s fair to point our that Double Vision is fuller and more musically interesting than the REO album I listened to for the last review. You Can Tune A Piano… has better hits than Foreigner has here, but I much prefer the deep tracks on Double Vision, especially on side 2. The songs here are pretty back-loaded, where most of the good stuff shows up when the songs are about over. If the buildups to these tunes was a little less meh, I could heartily recommend this album— as long as you paid absolutely no attention to the lyrics. Unfortunately, you have to listen to a lot of humdrum openers to get to the 30-45 seconds of richer, busier music at the end of a lot of these tracks. Maybe Foreigner eventually learned to write complete songs, but I doubt it; like REO, they embraced woozy ballads in the Eighties, and I quit paying attention7.
- That appealed to me a lot more when I was fourteen than it does now. ↩︎
- There are few moments in music I like as much as the end of “Cold as Ice.” The keyboard riff melds with the harmonies and Lou Gramm’s voice, and then the strings kick in like the long-awaited fulfillment of a promise. Foreigner never did anything as good as the last minute and change of this song. ↩︎
- Besides the aforementioned “Cold as Ice” and “Urgent,” I always really liked “Dirty White Boy,” one of the few times Foreigner really tried to put their foot on the gas. See, Foreigner rarely rocked—they preferred to glide, guitar and keyboard riffs a little too sanded-down and slow to truly feel like rock and roll. “Dirty White Boy” is one exception. So is “Juke Box Hero,” which is so over-the-top it borders on parody ↩︎
- Although there are plenty of guitar licks all over Foreigner’s songs, I almost never find the guitars catchy. The earwormy Foreigner tunes are either keyboard-heavy or feature a saxophone. “Blue Morning” has an insistent keyboard bit that sticks in my head and makes me forget the whiny lyrics here. ↩︎
- I said interesting. I didn’t say good. ↩︎
- “Not great, Bob!” comes to mind… ↩︎
- One exception: the Lou Gramm solo rocker “Midnight Blue.” a memorable song that is both a) catchy as hell, and b) not about a woman. Thank God. ↩︎
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