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Foreigner: Head Games

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Atlantic Records
Released: 1979.09.11
Time:
 38:13
Category: Pop/Rock
Producer(s): Roy Thomas Baker, Mick Jones, Ian McDonald
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.foreigneronline.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2014
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Dirty White Boy (L.Gramm/M.Jones) - 3:37
[2] Love on the Telephone (M.Jones/L.Gramm) - 3:18
[3] Women (M.Jones) - 3:25
[4] I'll Get Even with You (M.Jones) - 3:40
[5] Seventeen (M.Jones/L.Gramm) - 4:43
[6] Head Games (L.Gramm/M.Jones) - 3:37
[7] The Modern Day (M.Jones) - 3:26
[8] Blinded by Science (M.Jones) - 4:54
[9] Do What You Like (I.McDonald/L.Gramm) - 3:58
[10] Rev on the Red Line (L.Gramm/A.Greenwood) - 3:35
         Atlantic/Rhino remastered Head Games on CD in 2002
[11] Zalia (I.McDonald/L.Gramm) - 2:34

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Lou Gramm - Lead Vocals, Percussion
Mick Jones - Guitar, Piano, Keyboards, Vocals, Producer, Musical Director
Ian Mcdonald - Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals
Al Greenwood - Synthesizer, Keyboards
Rick Wills - Bass Guitar, Vocals
Dennis Elliott - Drums, Vocals

Roy Thomas Baker - Producer
Ian McDonald - Producer
Geoff Workman - Engineer
Randy Mason - Assistant Engineer, Studio Assistant
John Weaver - Assistant Engineer, Studio Assistant
George Marino - Mastering
Sandi Young - Art Direction, Design
David Alexander - Photography
Chris Callis - Photography
William Coupon - Photography

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Recorded in June-July 1979 at Atlantic Recording Studios.

All songs published by Somerset Songs Publishing Inc. & Evansongs Ltd. (ASCAP) except
"Do What You Like" published by Somerset Songs Publishing Inc, Evansongs Ltd. & Mud Drum Music (ASCAP)



Foreigner continued its platinum winning streak on Head Games, the band's third album. By the time Head Games was released, FM radio had fully embraced bands like Foreigner, Journey, and Boston, whose slick hard rock was tough enough to appeal to suburban teens, but smooth enough to be non-threatening to their parents. Tailor-made for the airwaves, "Dirty White Boy" and "Head Games" kept Foreigner at the top of the arena rock heap as the decade came to a close; and the supergroup's successes would continue well into the '80s.

Andy Hinds - All Music Guide



On Head Games, Foreigner tries hard to forget they're a phenomenon - a self-contained economy with their own Gross Platinum Product - and gets down to the unfinished business of being a rock & roll band.

Admittedly, they could have tried harder. "Head Games" sounds too familiar - e.g., the swirling synthesizers, Gothic keyboards and multitracked guitar parts from Foreigner's "Cold As Ice" and "Long, Long Way from Home" - to be much more than AM-radio insurance. "Blinded by Science," on the other hand, suffers from an overdose of ecological sincerity compounded by tired rhythms and a conspicuous lack of hooks.

But hard as it is to root for a group that's amassed as much precious metal as this one (at last count, Foreigner and Double Vision had sold a total of 9 million copies), Head Games presents a very persuasive case that these guys can rock with spirit and conviction. Powered by guitarist-songwriter Mick Jones' jackhammer riffing and Dennis Elliott's ham-fisted drumming, "Dirty White Boy," "Seventeen" and the presumably tongue-in-cheek misogynous chant, "Women," are refreshingly free of the pomp-art, heavy-metal flourishes that made the band its fortune. Punchy organ fills, spare vocal harmonies and fast, guerilla guitar breaks challenge but rarely upstage the cock's crowing of lead singer Lou Gramm.

After reaffirming their roots with a passing nod at the New Wave forces yapping at their heels, Foreigner trots out the English art-rock trappings that have always worked for them in the past. But the difference between Double Vision or Foreigner and the new LP's "Love on the Telephone," "Rev on the Red Line" or even the surprisingly poppish "Do What You Like" is an urgency that transcends the group's reliance on the tried-and-true. "Love on the Telephone" may bear more than a distant resemblance to "Cold as Ice" in Al Greenwood's rhythmic and melodic deployment of synthesizers against the tune's guitar-piano axis, yet its crisp and immediate "live" sound (the contribution of coproducer and sonic architect Roy Thomas Baker) is a real attraction.

There are still some chinks to be hammered out in Foreigner's armor. Jones' boyish tenor in "The Modern Day" is no match for Gramm's throaty howl, and the cliched macho stance of songs like "I'll Get Even with You" and "Seventeen" intimate an underdeveloped lyrical imagination. But Head Games is Foreigner's best album because they're finally willing to admit there can be a distinction between making hit records and making good rock & roll, platinum be damned.

David Fricke, Rolling Stone, 11-29-79.



Foreigner plays its full throated, rich brand of hard rock again on its third album, which may wind up being the most successful of the lot. The band has all the commercial riffs down pat, but this time around there seems to be more excitement and a sense of energy, missing from much of Foreigner's previous work. This revved up style, probably due to Roy Thomas Baker's contribution, enables Foreigner to make the switch to the more basic styles demanded by today's audiences while retaining its traditional choral dynamics. This LP could have been overblown and pretentious to no end, and it is to the band's credit that it isn't. But the hooks are still there. Best cuts: "Dirty White Boy," "Seventeen," "Head Games," "Blinded By Science," "Rev On The Red Line."

Billboard, 1979.



This isn't as sodden as you might expect - these are pros who adapt to the times, and they speed the music up. I actually enjoy a few of these songs until I come into contact with the smug, stupid woman-haters who do the singing. I mean, these guys think punks are cynical and anti-life? Guys who complain that the world is all madness and lies and then rhyme "science" and "appliance" without intending a joke? C

Robert Christgau, Creem, 3/80.



By the time Head Games hit the shelves of record stores around the world, Foreigner had overcome their initial trepidation at having seen their career take off in a rocket-like fashion and were now firmly established as one of the biggest arena rock acts in America. Having suffered at the hands of the critics for entertaining a sound that was too polished, the band made an effort to sound rougher at the edges, more "street." The album's opener certainly fits the bill; and as Mick Jones puts it, "we started to serach for a little more earthiness and that's how 'Dirty White Boy' came about." Jones also had to field accusations that the song had racist overtones, claims that Jones was adamant had no foundation whatsoever.

While there are gritty songs such as "Dirty White Boy" - a Top 20 hit in the US - and "Women," elsewhere the album reverts to type, with a typical grandiose rocker, "Love On The Telephone," the good-feeling "The Modern Day," and the title track, another Top 20 US hit, which exudes everything "big-sounding" that Foreigner fans had come to expect. The record sees the Foreigner debut of bassist Rick Wills (ex-Roxy Music, Small Faces) following the departure of Ed Gagliardi. The album peaked at Number Five on the US album charts, spending 41 weeks in the chart, but failed to make the Top 40 in the UK.

As of 2004, Head Games was the #38 best-selling album of the 70s.

Hamish Champ, The 100 Best-Selling Albums of the 70s, 2004.



Head Games is the third studio album by Anglo American rock band Foreigner, released in 1979. It charted at #5 on the Billboard 200 chart, and has sold over five million copies in the US alone. The album’s cover depicts a seemingly upset young woman (portrayed by actress Lisanne Falk) in a men's restroom. The title track and "Dirty White Boy" were the album's big hits, peaking at #14 and #12, respectively. This was the album in which Rick Wills replaced Ed Gagliardi as bassist. It was the band's only album produced by Roy Thomas Baker, best known for producing Queen's classic albums.

Wikipedia.org
 

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