Foreigner

by Cat Stevens

Overview

Between 1970 and 1972, Cat Stevens recorded four albums in the same manner, using the same producer and many of the same musicians, painting the album covers, and assigning the records ponderous titles. Things changed with his next album, Foreigner. The recording itself had been produced by Stevens, and while a couple of Stevens' usual backup musicians had been retained, New York session musicians appeared, and second guitarist Alun Davies was gone. With him went the acoustic guitar interplay that had been the core of Stevens' sound, replaced by more elaborate keyboard-based arrangements complete with strings, brass, and a female vocal trio featuring Patti Austin. It's easy to look at the 18-plus minute "Foreigner Suite" that took up the first side and accuse Stevens of excess and indulgence. What should be kept in mind, however, is that his peers in 1973 were acts like Jethro Tull and Yes, who in turn were taking their cue from the Beatles' Abbey Road and the Who's Tommy. Call Foreigner ambitious, then, rather than indulgent. Actually, the suite is full of compelling melodic sections and typically emotive singing that could have made for an album side's worth of terrific four-minute Cat Stevens songs, if only he had composed them that way. As it is, the suite is a collection of tantalizing fragments. But the album's second side, featuring the Top 40 hit "The Hurt," demonstrates that, even in the four-minute range, his songwriting and arranging were becoming overly busy. On the whole, Foreigner marked a slight fall-off in quality from Catch Bull at Four, which itself had marked a slight fall-off from Teaser and the Firecat. The decline seemed more extreme, though, because Foreigner clearly was intended to be better than its predecessors. That's the risk of ambition. ~ William Ruhlmann

Product Details

Release Date:	07/26/2024
Label:	A&M
UPC:	0602508161001
Rank:	52440

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Cat Stevens   Primary Artist,Bass,Organ,Piano,Guitar,Vocals,Strings,Clavinet,Keyboards,Fender Rhodes,ARP Synthesizer,Piano (Electric),Guitar (Acoustic)
Bernard "Pretty" Purdie   Guest Artist,Drums
Phil Upchurch   Guest Artist,Guitar,Guitar (Electric)
Patti Austin   Guest Artist,Vocals,Voices
Tasha   Voices
Paul Martinez   Bass
Tasha Thomas   Vocals,Voices
Jean Roussel   Bass,Strings,Keyboards,Piano (Electric)
Barbara Massey   Vocals,Voices
Herbie Flowers   Bass
Gerry Conway   Drums,Vocals,Percussion

Technical Credits

Ted Jensen   Mastering
Cat Stevens   Composer,Producer,Brass Arrangement,String Arrangements,Woodwind Arrangement
John Middleton   Engineer
Jean Roussel   Bass Arrangement,Brass Arrangement,String Arrangements,Woodwind Arrangement
Mike Bobak   Mixing
Bill Levenson   Reissue Supervisor
Vartan   Reissue Art,Reissue Art Director
Beth Stempel   Reissue Coordination
Roland Young   Cover Art,Cover Design,Cover Assembly
Mick Rock   Cover Photo,Photography