4, also known as Foreigner 4, is the fourth studio album by the British-American rock band Foreigner, released on July 2, 1981 on Atlantic Records. Several singles from the album were hits, including "Urgent", "Waiting for a Girl Like You" and "Juke Box Hero".
The album was a success worldwide, holding the #1 position on the Billboard album chart for a total of 10 weeks. It eventually sold over seven million copies in the US alone.
Video 4 (Foreigner album)
Background and writing
The album was originally titled Silent Partners and later was changed to 4, reflecting both the fact that it was Foreigner's fourth album and that the band was now down to four members. In 1981, art studio Hipgnosis was asked to design a cover based on the original title, and they developed a black and white image of a young man in bed with a pair of binoculars looming overhead. The resulting design was rejected by the band as they felt it was "too homosexual". The replacement cover for 4 was designed by Bob Defrin and modelled after an old fashioned film leader. Hipgnosis is still credited with designing the record labels.
The album marked the completion of the band's shift to hard rock, begun in Head Games. Both Ian McDonald and Al Greenwood had left before the recording of 4. As a result, all of the songs on the album are compositions by Mick Jones and/or Lou Gramm. McDonald and Greenwood had played saxophone and keyboards, respectively, and so several session musicians were needed to replace their contributions, among them Junior Walker, who played the saxophone solo in the bridge of "Urgent", and a young Thomas Dolby, who would later have a successful solo career.
Maps 4 (Foreigner album)
Track listing
Personnel
Foreigner
- Lou Gramm - lead vocals, percussion
- Mick Jones - guitar, backing vocals, keyboards
- Rick Wills - bass guitar, backing vocals
- Dennis Elliott - drums, backing vocals
Additional personnel
- Hugh McCracken - slide guitar on track 9
- Thomas Dolby - main synthesizers
- Larry Fast - sequential synthesizer on tracks 2, 3 and 10
- Michael Fonfara - keyboard textures on tracks 6 and 9
- Bob Mayo - keyboard textures on track 4
- Mark Rivera - saxophone on tracks 6 (except solo) and 3, backing vocals
- Junior Walker - saxophone solo on track 6
- Ian Lloyd - backing vocals
- Robert John "Mutt" Lange - backing vocals
Production
- Produced by Robert John "Mutt" Lange and Mick Jones
- Recorded and engineered by Dave Wittman (chief engineer) and Tony Platt (basic tracks).
- Second engineer: Brad Samuelsohn
- Assistant engineers: Edwin Hobgood and Michel Sauvage
- Mastered by George Marino at Sterling Sound (New York, NY).
- Art Direction: Bob Defrin
- Design: Hipgnosis
- Management: Bud Prager
Surround releases
4 was released in 2001 in multichannel DVD-Audio, and on September 14, 2011, on hybrid stereo-multichannel Super Audio CD by Warner Japan in their Warner Premium Sound series. June 2015 saw its re-release on Atlantic Records premium 180-gram vinyl with its original 1981 classic track listing.
Certifications
Charts
Album - Billboard (United States)
Singles - Billboard (United States)
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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