Dollar Bin Heroes (With POLLS In Their Eyes!): The Best...and Beyond of Foreigner

Impossible to choose.

Leaning toward "Cold as Ice" because it sounded so cool when M.O.P. sampled it.

I will say Juke Box has this in a walk, perhaps I will be wrong!

"Waiting For a Girl Like You" is nearly perfect as well.

Noticed I missed the "Very" from the album title. Consider it a subconscious reduction due to the absence of the Fonzie tribute "Headknocker" and the 'Hey, maybe we're a Prog Band...' debut single "Starrider."

considering a real troll vote for "dirty white boy" but commenting first to see if that's one that anybody actually rides for. please make yourself known (if you exist). i judge not, but i also want to make sure it gets some representation. because, quality of the song aside, it's pretty remarkable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X2sWGdOnzQ

Unfortunately, Les Nessman grooving to "Hot Blooded" has been removed from YouTube.

It will be one of the "4" singles for me, but I don't know which one. Tempted by "Waiting for a Girl Like You" for the Thomas Dolby synth part alone.

Outside the "4" singles, I think it would be "Double Vision" for me.

the one that sounds like pink fog

I liked "Hot Blooded" when I was 12, but at 52 it's either gonna be "Waiting..." or "Double Vision."

the worst band to have ever existed, they are my kryptonite along with Toto, like mark s with Rick Wakeman I must oppose them at every turn

hot blooded is the worst. don't love "cold as ice" but that one did inspire a great m.o.p. song and an amusing scene in arrested development

Records had "Long, Long Way from Home", but since that's not here, "Head Games" over "Waiting for a Girl Like You" because it better fits the Foreigner ideal.

"rev on the red line"?

this is totally proto-incel shit

hatemarking this thread so I can address the awfulness of each option at length

lol at proto-incel shit. at my school this was total chad music.

Their elevation today to Chuck Berry-Janis Joplin-Ramones status is absurd, but that aside, "I Want To Know What Love Is" is great.

Like music for the boys in shop class.

Writing in 'Long Long Way From Home'. Not a fan of this band but glad to see Ian McDonald in the hall as King Crimson should have been in years ago.

lol at proto-incel shit. at my school this was total chad music.

these are not necessarily mutually oppositional! Foreigner appealed to the worst, most hateful men of all varieties

Not that the bar for entering the Rock Hall was particularly high but they lower it a bit more

Is Bryan Adams in yet? Well if not, step right up my friend, your path is clear.

It's hilarious that these guys are the first real beneficiaries of the Wenner ouster.

Foreigner appealed to the worst, most hateful men of all varieties

Nah, they were just a good-time band from the heyday of blue-collar rock. Girls in my middle/high schools were Foreigner fans too! "Waiting for a Girl" is a classic prom slow dance.

I am biased, admittedly, because Lou Gramm was the biggest star Rochester, N.Y., ever produced (give or take a Chuck Mangione). Also a mensch by all accounts. His kid was in my mom's middle school science class for a few years and Lou would show up for every parent conference and school event his kid was in, and even played a benefit show for the school.

i can hear the singles in my head but i don't really feel like figuring out which one i would vote for

These lads had a formula for the videos and they stuck to it, gotta admire them for consistency

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD-SpHH7qDA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dzjg4v7bd1U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJSRfztl_tc

i feel like deep down they must also know they suck?

Does Lefsetz rep for them?

Did Foreigner ever get a positive review during their prime?

Self-XP

How could I forget this?

https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2014/07/03/rhinofy-foreigner-primer/

And you wonder why you’re sitting at home with Pro Tools with a modicum of skills and a mediocre voice and you’re not famous…BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT MICK JONES, YOU DON’T HAVE THE PIPES OF LOU GRAMM!

Decry the major label system of yore, but the truth is they had the best, and the bar to entry was high and those who made it to the top were truly talented.

Lef should induct them.

"4" in particular needs to be seen as part of the Mutt Lange Cinematic Universe, it was between Back in Black and Pyromania.

Long, Long Way from Home is a big miss on the collection. It is my favorite one by them.

When I was a kid circa 79-81, I thought Hot Blooded was a Kiss song.

I went with Juke Box Hero.

Man! Some of you are triggered!

I actually love many of the early minor hits like "Long Long Way to Go" over "Cold As Ice" and "Hot Blooded."

This comes down to:

Urgent
Waiting For a Girl Like You
I Want to Know What Love Is
Double Vision
Dirty White Boy

The later hits are pure Chicago/Bad English shit like "Say You Will"

Lou Gramm's "Midnight Blue" is best of all.

Did Foreigner ever get a positive review during their prime?

― Never fight uphill 'o me, boys! (President Keyes)

https://greilmarcus.net/2014/06/29/real-life-rock-top-10-1-9-90/

Lou Gramm is a great singer and I don't care who knows it. One of those 70s soul dudes that ended up in a rock band instead, like Mickey Thomas or Graham Bonnet or Bobby Kimball.

Oh! Here's another minor hit I like "Blue Morning, Blue Day."

^^Also absent on this comp.

Yeah that is a good one too. They were such a huge band in the radio back in their hey day.

The instrumental Tramontane would be my addition to this, but Waiting for a Girl Like You hit back in the day on the Footloose soundtrack, so that. Perfect summer radio band, growing up.

sorry even "Blue Morning" has terrible lyrics, altho it's passable musically

Thomas Dolby has some good stories about 4 in his autobiography

sorry even "Blue Morning" has terrible lyrics, altho it's passable musically

that's what I care about

Lou Gramm is an absolute king, the rest of you can shit on Foreigner as much as you like and you’d sort of not be wrong because Mick can’t help but propel them toward suckiness in every decade even WITH Lou

but listen to me (and Tipsy & Alfred and matt) when I say no-one sells an otherwise crappy song w terrible lyrics like my guy Lou (cf: hot blooded)

I think my vote is either Waiting For A Girl Like You, or I Wanna Know What Love Is .. both are heavy-hitters, Lou-wise
Urgent rules and has that excellent sax break
JukeBox Hero was my mother in law’s favorite song
Cold As Ice was a beer commercial in Australia & thus rules by default
Double Vision is pretty boss too

Lou Gramm could sing a parking ticket & it’d be amazing

Also Cold As Ice was ripped off wholesale by Madness for Embarrassment, the great songwriters know each other by instinct

FWIW, I tried playing clips of each song in the poll to refresh my memory, and my dog left the room even though she was fine with anything I was playing earlier. I guess she hates Foreigner.

Xenophobe dog

LMAO

Wish I took video. She was lying on her side then shot up and looked up at me during "Feels Like the First Time." I skipped to "Cold As Ice" and she kind of looks off into the distance like she's thinking about it, then gets up and walks out of the room.

lol turns the Australian beer commercial that i rememberec that used “Cold as Ice” was not actually for beer but um … cans? as a concept?

anyway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5dMfg-TqqY

Long, Long Way from Home is a big miss on the collection. It is my favorite one by them.

I came here to post exactly this.

this is totally proto-incel shit

What album was "Hot Blooded" on? Because the lyric "c'mon baby do you do more than dance?" pairs with the Head Games cover art so well.

I just listened to "Blue Morning, Blue Day" and, no, the lyrics are not terrible: they're more than okay.

pairs with the Head Games cover art so well

so it's about assaulting somebody in a bathroom?

So many of these still turn my stomach, but I had to come around a bit after realizing the reason Ladytron's "Turn it On" seemed so familiar was it was basically "Urgent"

XP
yeah, they're both kinda casually, obliviously rape-y (which is why the proto-incel comment felt so OTM).

I did love foreigner when I was 12 though. My vote goes to Jukebox Hero, since it was so cinematic.

They were kind of the Imagine Dragons of their day.

this old Beck song also reminds me of urgent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7JD2CqTKS4

would never ever have thought 'foreigner! hall-of-fame band!' but they had hits in two different 'eras' and i honestly liked most of them well enough

happy for the new jersey mass choir i guess

anyway i would hope this obviates the need for a bad company selection, as foreigner did that thing better (and also did not have a self-titled song on their self-titled album)

There’s no way Paul Rodgers doesn’t end up in the HoF in some band

jan wenner would totally have inducted the firm

more hof worthy: paul rodgers or norman greenbaum

lol brimstead

rock n roll fantasy > juke box hero

bad co.'s 'r&r fantasy' is just 'shooting star' without the downer part!

fucking aldo nova is better

Paul Rodgers gets a bit of a pass though for Free. Those first two albums before Kossoff lost it were great.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

the bad company hits are way better than the foreigner hits, c'mon

“bad comapny hits”

this band has a lot of near-great songs, mostly let down by Gramm's lyrics lacking any kind of sparkle or verve at all. just line after line of re-establishing the premise of the song and checking the boxes for the meter and rhyme scheme. between that and the pummeling arrangements, I'm tired of almost all these songs the moment they start.

"Feels Like the First Time" at least finds a great hook, but "I Want To Know What Love Is" actually makes a meal out of its compulsion towards bigness. that's my pick. what a monster of a song, impossible to ignore in any setting.

when I was a kid I hated that song because I took the chorus very literal and I asked my mom "why is the singer so dumb?"

ha! would make a good Sesame Street sketch, teaching different nouns and concepts each time.

I wanna know what cheese/time/Rome is -- I want you to shoooooow meeeeeee

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Dirty White Boy 3:38 1

8)

Pretty even spread over five songs

I do really like “Say You Will” and am bummed it didnt get any votes but it’s also not like, great, so i get it

the best Foreigner song is Lou Gramm's "Just Between You and Me"

also yes, i love that one too

I just want to shout out again the saxophone in "Urgent," maybe my favorite '80s sax song (or at least up there with "Harden My Heart").

amen

Definitely have a soft spot for "Say You Will", which my mom put on a tape we played endlessly in the car as a kid. But "I Wanna Know What Love Is" is a basically perfect song

"Urgent" joins "Waiting On a Friend" in that short list of 1981-1982 hits with world-class jazz folx blowing sax.