Foreigner’s fourth album, the imaginatively-titled 4, represented the band’s commercial apex, hitting #1 and spinning off three Top Ten singles. The thing about summitting a peak, though, is there’s only one direction left to go afterwards. Ninety-five percent of the tracks the band has issued since 4 are obscure enough to qualify as potential Final Jeopardy answers.

There are reasons for that.

Venturing beyond 4 in Foreigner’s catalog requires determination bordering on masochism. Whatever their flaws—and they are many—those first four albums all had at least a song or two, a hook or two, a moment or two that earned them a measure of attention. There was a certain undeniable flair present in the group’s dogged devotion to basic, bombastic arena rock that appealed to a certain kind of listener. And indeed, on the strength of its big single—the super-sized power ballad and #1 hit “I Want To Know What Love Is”—Agent Provocateur made it to #4 on the charts. If that was all there was to the story—oh, who am I kidding. The band simply never recovered from this album.

Foreigner—once again comprised of Mick Jones (guitars/keys), Lou Gramm (vocals), Dennis Elliott (drums), Rick Wills (bass), and a thundering herd of session keyboardists—went into Agent looking for a second bite of the multi-platinum success they’d achieved with 4. Their first choice of producer, Trevor Horn (Yes, Seal), lasted a few months before bailing, replaced by Paul Sadkin (Thompson Twins, Duran Duran), who ended up co-producing with Jones.

And while with Foreigner the production typically rates little mention, it plays a major role here. As deeply flawed an album as Agent Provocateur is, the mortal blow is struck by its so-very-very-’80s sound design, a horror show of tinny drums, frosty synths and over-processed guitar. (You could call it Robocop production: more machine than man.) It’s tempting to blame Horn and/or Sadkin for this, but the fact is that Jones has always had the final say when it comes to Foreigner’s sound.

The group does their best on album opener “Tooth And Nail” to meld their typical heavy, blues-based rock with a maximally processed-and-synthed sound; imagine The Firm with no Paul Rodgers, no Jimmy Page, and the anonymous keyboardist from an ’80s pop band sitting in. This marriage of opposites fares better on second track / second single “That Was Yesterday,” which reached #12 on the strength of its potent hooks, even if the synths could give the Human Torch frostbite.

The track that would be revealed over time as both a high and a low point of Foreigner’s career was also Agent’s lead single: “I Want To Know What Love Is.” After the chart success of 4’s big ballad “Waiting For A Girl Like You,” the label pressured the band for another, and despite some misgivings, they delivered in spades. Is “I Want To Know What Love Is” melodramatic, overblown, and wayyy over the top? Hello? This is Foreigner we’re talking about. But it’s also the finest vocal performance of Gramm’s career, with genuine nuance and emotion.

Now, quick—name another song on this album.

Yeah, didn’t think so.

As if reacting to the softness of The Big Ballad, Foreigner proceeds to deliver three straight rockers, all of them misfires. “Growing Up The Hard Way” tries for pathos with a yearning synth line but jumps the melodic tracks with a clunky chorus that feels borrowed from another song entirely. “Reaction To Action” turns up the macho—and the guitars—but like its predecessor has zero flow or substance; it’s strictly generic Bluster Rock. And while “Stranger In My Own House” shows some fire in its chunky, Zeppelin-esque riffage, its overblown vocal arrangement also features the kind of lyric the facepalm emoji was invented for: “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow this house down.”

The next trio of tracks comprise a mid-tempo snoozefest drenched in ’80s synths. “A Love In Vain” is the best of the bunch thanks to Wills’ jumpy, engaging bass line, but underneath the melodramatic excesses of “Down On Love” and “Two Different Worlds,” they’re still faceless ’80s arena-pop. Closing things out, “She’s Too Tough” ups the tempo while reverting to Jones and Gramm’s default persona of Victimized Man Whining About His Fate. The one real question is whether the lyric is more pathetic or dimwitted (“If I do what I'm told / She's gooder than gold to me / She's too tough”).

Despite that obvious candidate, the album’s actual low point turned out to be the credits. Gramm has said that he and Jones—frequent songwriting collaborators—would typically finish a song and then discuss what the split would be on credit and royalties. In the case of “I Want To Know What Love Is,” Jones did substantial work on the song before inviting Gramm in to help finish it up. When they were done, they each wrote down on a slip of paper what they thought the split should be. Gramm suggested 65 for Jones and 35 for himself. Jones proposed 95 for himself and 5 for Gramm. “I was so stunned and crushed that he'd think I contributed next to nothing to that song,” claims a crestfallen Gramm. “All I could think of was greed… We all knew it was gonna be a smash… I said ‘Five, Mick? You should just keep it all.’”

Which he did—whereupon the song, credited to Jones alone, went to #1. It remains to this day the band’s top-selling track. “That put a wedge in us that was the beginning of the end,” says Gramm, and indeed, Jones and Gramm’s relationship would never be the same. If 4 was the album that made Foreigner, its sequel Agent Provocateur was the one that broke them.

Rating: D+

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