..:: audio-music dot info ::..


Main Page      The Desert Island      Copyright Notice
 Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz


Foreigner: Inside Information

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Atlantic Records
Released: 1987.12.08
Time:
 44:12
Category: Pop/Rock
Producer(s): Frank Filipetti, Mick Jones
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] Heart Turns to Stone (M.Jones/L.Gramm) - 4:29
[2] Can't Wait (M.Jones/L.Gramm) - 4:27
[3] Say You Will (M.Jones/L.Gramm) - 4:12
[4] I Don't Want to Live Without You (M.Jones) - 4:52
[5] Counting Every Minute (M.Jones/L.Gramm) - 4:11
[6] Inside Information (M.Jones) - 4:09
[7] The Beat of My Heart (M.Jones/L.Gramm) - 5:10
[8] Face to Face (M.Jones/L.Gramm) - 3:53
[9] Out of the Blue - 4:42 (M.Jones/L.Gramm/R.Wills/D.Elliott) - 4:42
[10] A Night to Remember (M.Jones/L.Gramm) - 4:07

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Lou Gramm - Vocals
Mick Jones - Guitar, Keyboard, Background Vocals, Producer
Rick Wills - Bass, Background Vocals
Dennis Elliott - Drums

Tom Bailey - Keyboard
Kevin Jones - Synthesizer, Synclavier
Ian Lloyd - Background Vocals
Hugh Mccracken - Spanish Guitar
Jack Allen Smith - Drums, Background Vocals
Sammy Merendino - Electronic Percussion
Mark Rivera - Background Vocals
Peter-John Vettese - Keyboard

Frank Filipetti - Producer, Engineer, Mixing
Billy Miranda - Engineer, Assistant Engineer
Ted Jensen - Mastering
Warren Austerer - Pre-Production Assistant
Bob Defrin - Art Direction
E.J. Camp - Photography
Roger Corbeau - Photography

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


1987 CD Atlantic - A2 81808
1987 CD Columbia House - A2 81808

Recorded in Summer-Mid Autumn, 1987



Foreigner was arguably the finest band of AOR's late-'70s and early-'80s heyday. Unfortunately, after a decade of monstrous success and raking in truckloads of cash for themselves and Atlantic Records, 1987's Inside Information showed that the songwriting gas tank of guitarist/keyboardist Mick Jones and vocalist Lou Gramm was running low. Impeccable studio craftsmanship can't compensate for the lack of quality songs. There are a few solid tracks, but the album only sold a million copies - paltry when compared to previous releases - and it currently ranks as Foreigner's last major commercial success. The proceedings start promisingly enough with "Heart Turns to Stone," an energetic rock number that became a minor hit. "Say You Will" was Foreigner's last great Top Ten single. It's loaded with killer vocal and keyboard hooks. The bloodless, pleasantly tepid ballad "I Don't Want to Live Without You" actually made the Top Five; it has neither the passion of "Waiting for a Girl Like You" nor the soul of "I Want to Know What Love Is." "Inside Information" experiments a little with odd rhythms. "The Beat of My Heart" is notable only for the Spanish guitar intro by guest Hugh McCracken. The gritty "Face to Face" is an excellent album track. "Out of the Blue" is the only song written by the entire band - Jones, Gramm, bassist Rick Wills, and drummer Dennis Elliott - and that does give it a slightly more organic feel.

Bret Adams - All Music Guide



As Foreigner sunk more deeply into the '80s, their career started to sink badly. This album is even more bland than the last one, and at least the last one had a pretty nice hit on it, “That Was Yesterday.” The best these guys could do for Inside Information was “Say You Will.”

“Say You Will” has an OK melody that would just barely hold up on any Best of Foreigner compilation. By far the biggest disappointment of that song, and the rest of this album for that matter, is that the instrumentation is so dang bland. I mean, didn't I praise 4 slightly for being instrumented nicely? What happened? That is the typical, toneless keyboard nonsense that plagued the radio in the '80s. At first the bouncy keyboards and guitars in the chorus are sort of fun, but it doesn't take too long for that to have fully run its course in my brain and start getting dull too.

Good thing this album is pretty inoffensive and kept at a reasonable 44-minute running length, so it's easy for the listener to check out and not really pay attention. But if you're going to do that, then why not conserve energy and just listen to dead air? You'll not only save your eardrums some wear and tare, but you'd also do a little bit to save the world from Global Warming! Or you could just say screw the world and let it go down in flames with some Black Sabbath. Now we're talking.

“I Don't Want to Live Without You” was one of the album's hits, and it shows that people from 1987 were really into the dullest ballads imaginable. That song doesn't have a melody to speak of, and its instrumentation is nothing but late '80s ultra-polished adult contemporary nonsense. You already know what it sounds like without actually listening to it. They tried one other ballad in this album, “Out of the Blue,” and it's even worse; as each second of that song goes by the bland guitars, dead drum beat, and toneless melody start to eat at my brain like an acid. The only way to spare yourself from its wrath is to not listen to it. Or if you're listening to it, put your fingers in your ears. ...The horrendous quality of these ballads is why Foreigner should just stick to the rockers. They might be entirely bland and generic, but at least they give me an excuse to tap my foot. Usually.

The slick opening song, “Heart Turns to Stone” is definitely one of the better generic rockers... If you're feeling adventurous, you can close your eyes when you listen to it, and imagine a Rocky-style montage. It's perfect for that. “Counting Every Minute” probably isn't slick enough for a Rocky montage, but it's good for a sort of smoky-bar-with-mullet-headed-bikers montage. Hell yeah! And then there was some sort of attempt at teen-pop, “Face to Face,” which steals the bass-line from “Material Girl.” That's a nice bass-line, and that's pretty much the only thing about the song that engages my ear, so steal away!

The worst song on the album is without question the title track, which as far as I'm concerned handily steals the “Bad '80s Electrogarbage” title away from Phil Collins' “Sussudio.” It's not only a poorly written song, but it just depresses me. How could musicians in the decade I was born in have written such crap? Ugh, I knew I wasn't expecting anything great out of Foreigner in the first place, but I at least thought they were beyond stuff like that.

In conclusion, this album is awful, and I would only buy it if I were a rich millionaire who liked to squander his wealth on useless things. Inside Information is pretty much the reason everyone says that the late '80s were the nadir of pop music. Well... I've actually listened to solo-Styx albums and some of those were worse, but Foreigner's Inside Information is definitely in that class.

DonIgnacio.com



Inside Information is the sixth studio album by American rock band Foreigner, released in 1987. The album hit #15 on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart and was certified Platinum in the U.S. for sales exceeding one million copies. Although a huge standard by any country's charting method, the band's sales were certainly plummeting since the release of 4 in 1981.

"Say You Will" was released as the album's first single. Allmusic later noted that the single was a "good example" of the band's "balancing act" as "the guitar-heavy style of their early work gave way to slick arrangements that pushed electronics to the fore...temper(ing) its rock guitar edge...and Lou Gramm's quasi-operatic vocals...by thick layers of chiming synthesizers and an array of electronic textures."[2] The single reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became their fourth #1 hit on the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, holding the top spot for four weeks. The song also became the band's third-highest charting hit in Germany, where it reached #22, faring even better in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and particularly Norway, where it reached #4. A rare CD single featured an extended remix version of the track.

The second single, "I Don't Want to Live Without You", reached #5 on the Hot 100. Markedly softer than any of their work to date, the record was their first and only #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart, after the more rousing ballads "Waiting for a Girl Like You" and "I Want To Know What Love Is" had reached #5 and #3 on that chart respectively. Allmusic would later observe that while "the end result lacked the distinctive rock touches of past Foreigner ballads," Lou Gramm "contributes a lead vocal that avoids histrionics in favor of an emotional but very smooth delivery" over "washes of synthesizer...fleshed out by some meditative electric piano riffs".[3] Nevertheless, the song charted at mainstream rock radio, where it peaked at #18. The #5 Hot 100 peak was their best showing in six singles, yet despite being followed up by more impassioned, up-tempo material it would be their last major pop hit to date.

Further singles from the album included "Heart Turns to Stone", which had peaked at #7 on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart in an earlier non-commercial release only to rock radio but only managed #56 on the Hot 100 several months later, and the harder "Can't Wait", which matched the #18 Mainstream Rock Tracks charting of "I Don't Want To Live Without You" but failed to crack the Hot 100.[4] It was the last album to feature the classic '80s core lineup of Gramm, Jones, Wills and Elliott. The following year saw a successful solo album and singles from Lou Gramm and found Mick Jones releasing an album and producing for artists including Billy Joel.

Wikipedia.org
 

 L y r i c s


Currently no Lyrics available!

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


Currently no Samples available!