Foreigner

• Rock

Foreigner is a rock band formed in New York City in 1976 by veteran musicians Mick Jones and ex-King Crimson member Ian McDonald, along with then-unknown vocalist Lou Gramm (Louis Grammatico). Foreigner has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide (including over 36 million in the United States alone). The band is led by British journeyman rocker Mick Jones (former member of Nero and The Gladiators, Spooky Tooth, and The Leslie West Band) who in early 1976 met with ex-King Crimson member Ian McDonald and formed Foreigner with Lou Gramm of Rochester, NY, as well as three other musicians who were all unknown at the time to form a sextet. The band’s debut album, Foreigner, sold more than four million copies in the United States and stayed in the top twenty for a year with such hits as “Feels Like the First Time,” “Cold as Ice,” and “Long Long Way From Home.” Their sophomore effort, Double Vision, topped their previous selling five million records and spawned “Hot Blooded” and title track “Double Vision.” The third album, Head Games, was also successful due to the thunderous “Dirty White Boy” and another title track hit “Head Games.” 1980 brought personnel changes so that now the band was a quartet and Rick Wills played bass. The departed members Gagliardi and Greenwood went on to the failed band Spys. Foreigner’s next album, their fourth and appropriately named 4, was their biggest hit containing “Jukebox Hero,” “Waiting for a Girl Like You,” and “Urgent.” Their next album, Agent Provocateur, gave them their only #1 hit, a gospel-inspired ballad backed by the New Jersey Mass Choir, “I Want To Know What Love Is.” The band then released Inside Information, but in the late 1980s Jones and Gramm each put out solo efforts and the band required personnel changes.

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