If someone had told me that in August of 1981, I'd state that a Foreigner song with a scorching Junior Walker sax break might be the best damned car-radio single of the summer, I'd have advised him to ease up on the black beauties. But "Urgent" is terrific. (Considering these guys' pallid output over the years, how'd they ever convince Walker to get involved?) I'm not trying to be nasty, yet I've always thought that Foreigner was a group worth ignoring rather than criticizing.
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Their earlier hits, "Cold as Ice," "Dirty White Boy" and "Double Vision," hold up as reasonably good rockers in the Bad Company-Van Halen vein, but they're not nearly as neat as the quality stuff on Bad Company's first two albums. And
all of the above bands pale in comparison to those they struggle to imitate: Free and vintage Led Zeppelin.
Lou Gramm is no Paul Rodgers or Robert Plant (which might be just as well these days), yet he sings the hell out of "Urgent," a metallic, predatory confessional about sexual obsession, steeped in steamy nocturnal cravings. The instrumentation is crisp and spare, and Walker punctuates the cynical seductive frenzy like the master that he is, cutting loose at the moment the sap is spurting with a rippling solo that ranks with his finest work.
How Foreigner managed to crank out such a marvelous backseat anthem and then sink into utter mediocrity on the rest of 4 is mildly intriguing, but – shrug – what are you gonna do? I mean, without Gramm's vocals, there's nothing to distinguish the group's sound from that of a dozen other middling-to-hard rock acts. Indeed, "Break It Up" sounds like a bar band imitating Queen, 10cc and, only incidentally, Foreigner.
Lou Gramm's agitated screeching reminds me of the amusing rages of Edgar Kennedy, a popular character actor in film comedies of the Thirties and Forties. Known as "Slow Burn" Edgar, Kennedy was a husky, balding fellow in a bowler hat who was invariably taunted into total exasperation by the likes of Chico and Harpo Marx (who caused him to pop his cork as a street vendor in Duck Soup). The inevitable explosion was so entertaining that it was always difficult–and unnecessary – to recall what had precipitated it. Kennedy built a comfy grade-B living around that one routine, and Gramm could be his rock & roll counterpart, with "Urgent" looming as his Duck Soup.
As for the rest of Foreigner, well, they do lend able support to Gramm's high-water mark, which, I must reaffirm, will probably prove to be the top single of–hey, wait a minute! I forgot Squeeze's "Tempted." Jeez, that's gotta be the hottest sex-driving hit of the summer.
Sorry about that, Lou, but look at it this way: second best would definitely be a step up. (RS 352)
TIMOTHY WHITE
