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.

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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.

Bonus Reviews!

Do yourself and Foreigner a favor: ignore the vulgar front cover of this one and forget the wretched first side; start by playing the title tune, which is the opening cut on side two, and continue through "The Modern Day," "Blinded by Science," and "Do What You Like." You can also safely ignore the closing cut, because it is just like the bash-and-crash material on side one.

I suspect that the reason the first side is an annoying collection of mediocre thumpers is, in a word, commerce. Foreigner's first two albums were sensational sellers, and the group can't afford a did the third time out. So they knocked off half a dozen screamers to hold their position in the marketplace. The better material here shows that the band generally plays well below their capabilities. If they can accustom their audience to their real talents, perhaps some day they'll be able to release an album that's all good.

- Joel Vance, Stereo Review, 1/80.

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.

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