Masters of hook-heavy area rock from the day guitarist/songwriter/producer Mick Jones gathered them in New York Metropolis, Foreigner epitomized – and just about perfected – the shape.

The band’s self-titled 1977 debut album and its follow-up, Double Imaginative and prescient, had been monster hits with enormous singles like “Chilly as Ice” and “Sizzling Blooded.” However with 1979’s Head Video games, one thing went incorrect. Although it bought properly and featured strong singles just like the title monitor and “Soiled White Boy,” it didn’t attain the more and more anticipated degree of Foreigner’s stardom, a truth partly blamed on its controversial album cowl. It additionally sounded “off,” which was a shock provided that it was produced by Roy Thomas Baker, who had helmed sonically immaculate albums by Queen and The Vehicles.

The band knew its subsequent album had to be higher. When Jones, American songwriting accomplice/lead vocalist Lou Gramm, bassist Rick Wills (who changed Ed Gagliardi in time for Head Video games), drummer Dennis Elliott, multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald, and keyboardist Al Greenwood started engaged on what turned 4, it shortly turned obvious the band wasn’t evolving.

“Mick and I had a number of lengthy talks about what our subsequent step was, and we agreed that if there was one other album like Head Video games that didn’t sound completed and that the gross sales had been low, it in all probability would mark the top of Foreigner as we knew it,” Gramm defined to Classic Guitar. “We needed to write higher songs, and we needed to carry out in a different way. We needed to reinvent ourselves, mainly. With various kinds of songs, we additionally needed to do various kinds of taking part in. That appeared to be the issue. After we began rehearsals, it was the identical sounds on the keyboards and the identical model of taking part in out of Al and Ian.

“Mick and I might get collectively after a few of these rehearsals and say to ourselves that we needed to make one other step apart from the producer and the extra well-w written songs if we would like this album to appear like we’ve turned the web page. We have to make tough however essential selections. That’s once we gave Al and Ian their discover. It was very tough. After the day we did that, we had been all sitting there crying.”

Formally right down to Jones, Gramm, Wills, and Elliott, they introduced in visitor musicians together with keyboardists Thomas Dolby (who launched the 1982 synth-pop hit “She Blinded Me with Science”), Bob Mayo (who, like Jones, had recorded with Peter Frampton), Larry Quick, and Michael Fonfara, saxophonist Mark Rivera, backing vocalist Ian Lloyd, and revered session guitarist Hugh McCracken (who added ethereal slide to the deep-cut favourite “Lady on the Moon”).

One other essential step was bringing in Robert John “Mutt” Lange to co-produce (with Jones) at New York Metropolis’s famed Electrical Girl Studios. Lange had loved huge success producing AC/DC’s Freeway to Hell and Again in Black. Based on Gramm, Lange and Jones typically labored properly collectively, however there was additionally friction when Mutt appeared to fall again on his AC/DC expertise.

“Mick didn’t wish to take it to that time the place there was any comparability between the 2,” he stated. “We had our personal sound, our personal songs. We didn’t wish to be doing issues that had been completed already, particularly when it comes to ad-libs and guitar riffs. We needed to steer clear of something even near what they did. We revered them, however we weren’t them.”

Launched in July of 1981, 4 topped the Billboard album chart for 10 weeks and generated 5 singles on the Sizzling 100 – first the R&B-influenced rocker “Pressing” (#4) with its blistering sax solo by Motown/Soul Data legend Junior Walker, the ballad “Ready for a Lady Like You” (#2 for 10 consecutive weeks), anthemic fist-pumper “Juke Field Hero” (#26), catchy pop-rocker “Break it Up” (#26), and Buddy Holly-influenced “Luanne” (#75). Thus far, 4 has bought greater than 6 million copies and has simply been reissued in a deluxe version (see evaluation on this subject).

Wills remembers “Ready for a Lady Like You” being the primary tune they recorded.

“We went in and simply began taking part in,” he advised VG. “And the sound the engineer obtained within the room was so good, simply unbelievable. After the second take, he stated, ‘Come and pay attention.’ He performed it again actually loud, and it was unbelievably good. And there was nothing incorrect with it, in anyway. It was simply good. And he stated, ‘Nicely, I’m maintaining that.’ Me, being the optimist, thought, ‘We’re off to an ideal begin right here. We’ll have this (album) completed very quickly,’ not realizing I used to be going to be there for the following 12 months and a half. However Atlantic Data was paying the payments, and we spent almost $2 million making that album.

“When Mick requested what I considered ‘Ready for a Lady Like You,’ I stated, ‘If that isn’t a #1 single, I don’t know what’s.’ We obtained to #2 earlier than Olivia Newton-John held us off the highest with ‘Bodily’ (for 9 of the ten weeks). That was barely annoying, truly!”

Wills agrees with Gramm’s assertion that Head Video games wasn’t completed, although the band’s sound did get harder.

“Ed Gagliardi had a really trebly bass sound on a Rickenbacker, and I like deep Fender-type bass. I’ve at all times used Precisions within the studio – that’s the sound I like, with a extra ballsy rhythm part. [On 4] it was principally my ’60s sunburst Precision. I’d modified the pickups to EMGs, which had been louder and clearer.”

Jones’ taking part in is commonly underrated, however Gramm causes Jones pushed himself on 4.

“He was in a special way of thinking for this document and felt extra assured as a result of the songs had been extra full and ready. His taking part in was a number of the most spontaneous and artistic of all of the albums we did,” he stated. “He at all times had nice elements and at all times performed terrific, however this one appeared to be the place he let the spontaneity lead him.”

Gramm additionally believes 4 is Foreigner’s finest album.

“I like all our albums,” he stated. “However far and away, 4 was essentially the most attention-grabbing, the best-played, and essentially the most well-thought-out, and it was very spontaneous.”

This text initially appeared in VG’s October 2025 subject. All copyrights are by the writer and Classic Guitar journal. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.