Foreigner

Agent Provocateur

80s Power Rock and a Couple of Good Ballads

Review Score:

(8/10)
This CD is solid 80s. To some extent it is reminiscent of numerous other 80s hard rock groups. And yet, it also contains unique compositions that are among Foreigner's better contributions to rock music.

The most memorable and perhaps longest lasting songs on this CD are the ballads and quasi-ballads. Songs like "That Was Yesterday" and "I Want to Know What Love Is" continue to get airplay on 80s stations and now some classic rock stations. "I Want to Know What Love Is" is not only a ballad, but a POWER ballad.

However, in addition to these ballads are less memorable efforts that are okay, but distract from the better songs. "A Love in Vain" and "Two Different Worlds" are also ballads, but while not bad songs, are clearly filler songs stuck in to fill out a CD.

While the ballads are what will keep Foreigner in the minds of many people, Foreigner really was a hard rock group. "Tooth and Nail", "Growing Up the Hard Way", "Reaction to Action", "Stranger in My Own House" and "She's Too Tough" are the kind of hard rock songs that defined Foreigner. Most have a flavor of the 80s, though for some songs the flavor may be a taste, for many the songs are easily detectable as 80s. However, just because the songs are 80s, they remain decent songs, and even decent hard rock songs.

Because this album was a follow up to the monster album "Foreigner 4", and because of some of the weaker songs on the album, the album has been maligned by a number of reviewers and critics. Fortunately we live in the CD age, and you can program this CD to match your musical tastes. If you like Foreigner the hard rock group, just program the five or six rocking songs, and skip the ballads. If you like most of the music except for the weaker ballads, program them out. If you take off the weakest songs, what remains is a pretty good album. If we take off the weakest five songs of the ten, you end up with an album that, while short on songs, has the kind of strength that "Foreigner 4" had.

I've enjoyed Foreigner's music for many years, though I am not as big a Foreigner fan as many others that have reviewed this album. Comparing this album to other Foreigner albums, I think it's one of their better albums. Admittedly it doesn't reach the peak of "Foreigner 4", but every group has an album that just seems to be a definable peak that they either do not hit again, or that it takes a long time to reach once again. If Foreigner had not released "4", it may well be that some fans would have regarded this album as their best, or one of their best. Because of the weaker songs I give this CD 4 stars. Conversely, some of the better songs on this CD pull it past 3 stars into a solid 4 star range. If you like 80s power rock, then I think you will find this CD interesting.

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