Foreigner

1	Foreigner Suite 18:21
2	The Hurt 4:19
3	How Many Times 4:29
4	Later 4:46
5	1001 Dream 4:10

All Music Guide

Between 1970 and 1972, Cat Stevens recorded and released four albums in the same manner, using the same producer, Paul Samwell-Smith, and many of the same musicians, particularly second guitarist Alun Davies, painting the album covers, and assigning the records ponderous titles - Mona Bone Jakon, Tea for the Tillerman, Teaser and the Firecat, and Catch Bull at Four - that usually referred more to the paintings than the albums' contents. Things changed with his next album, Foreigner, beginning with the title, which invoked his status as a tax exile, and the cover, which displayed a photograph of the artist. The recording itself had been produced by Stevens and recorded in Jamaica, with overdubs done in New York. A couple of Stevens' usual backup musicians, drummer Gerry Conway and keyboard player Jean Roussel had been retained, but New York session musicians like Bernard Purdie appeared and Alun Davies was gone. With him went the acoustic guitar interplay that had been the core of Stevens' sound, replaced by more elaborate keyboard-based arrangements, complete with strings, brass, and a female vocal trio featuring Patti Austin.

It's easy to look at the 18+-minute "Foreigner Suite" that took up the first side and accuse Stevens of excess and indulgence. What should be kept in mind, however, is that his peers in 1973 were acts like Jethro Tull and Yes that were penetrating the Top Ten and selling millions of records while creating elaborate musical suites, and that they in turn were taking their cue from landmark recordings like the Beatles' Abbey Road and the Who's Tommy. Call Foreigner ambitious, then, rather than indulgent. Actually, the suite is full of compelling melodic sections and typically emotive singing that could have made for an album side's worth of terrific four-minute Cat Stevens songs if only he had composed them that way. As it is, the suite is a collection of tantalizing fragments. But the album's second side, featuring the Top 40 hit "The Hurt," demonstrates that, even in the four-minute range, his songwriting and arranging were becoming overly busy. Lyrically, he seemed more concerned than usual with the vicissitudes of love, as if a love affair weren't working out, but as ever he struggled for a positive viewpoint while frequently expressing frustration.

On the whole, Foreigner marked a slight fall-off in quality from Catch Bull at Four, which itself had marked a slight fall-off from Teaser and the Firecat. The decline seemed more extreme, though, because Foreigner clearly was intended to be better than its predecessors. That's the risk of ambitiousness. A similar slight fall-off was taking place commercially. The album became Stevens' third consecutive effort to lodge in the U.S. top five, and it went gold, though it spent fewer weeks in the Top Ten than either of its two predecessors. (Foreigner was reissued as a remastered CD on July 25, 2000.) ~ William Ruhlmann

All Music Guide

Between 1970 and 1972, Cat Stevens recorded four albums in the same manner, using the same producer and many of the same musicians, painting the album covers, and assigning the records ponderous titles. Things changed with his next album, Foreigner. The recording itself had been produced by Stevens, and while a couple of Stevens' usual backup musicians had been retained, New York session musicians appeared, and second guitarist Alun Davies was gone. With him went the acoustic guitar interplay that had been the core of Stevens' sound, replaced by more elaborate keyboard-based arrangements complete with strings, brass, and a female vocal trio featuring Patti Austin. It's easy to look at the 18-plus minute "Foreigner Suite" that took up the first side and accuse Stevens of excess and indulgence. What should be kept in mind, however, is that his peers in 1973 were acts like Jethro Tull and Yes, who in turn were taking their cue from the Beatles' Abbey Road and the Who's Tommy. Call Foreigner ambitious, then, rather than indulgent. Actually, the suite is full of compelling melodic sections and typically emotive singing that could have made for an album side's worth of terrific four-minute Cat Stevens songs, if only he had composed them that way. As it is, the suite is a collection of tantalizing fragments. But the album's second side, featuring the Top 40 hit "The Hurt," demonstrates that, even in the four-minute range, his songwriting and arranging were becoming overly busy. On the whole, Foreigner marked a slight fall-off in quality from Catch Bull at Four, which itself had marked a slight fall-off from Teaser and the Firecat. The decline seemed more extreme, though, because Foreigner clearly was intended to be better than its predecessors. That's the risk of ambition. William Ruhlmann