The week of February 2, 1985, found Foreigner atop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘I Want to Know What Love Is.’
Foreigner’s ‘Waiting For a Girl Like You’ holds the record for the most weeks at #2 without ever reaching #1. That happened in 1981. Four years later, the band finally got over that hump and landed their first (and only) #1 hit with this undeniable power ballad.
Our next 2024 inductee into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is a band that fits neatly into the traditional definition of rock and roll. During a time when the Hall is increasingly adding rap, R&B, and country artists to its ranks, Foreigner feels like a throwback.
First eligible in 2003 but not nominated until this year, Foreigner has the numbers to back up their inclusion. The band’s first six albums went multi-Platinum and produced 14 Top 20 hits, including the #1 smash ‘I Want to Know What Love Is,’ plus ‘Waiting for a Girl Like You,’ which set a record for most weeks at #2 without reaching the top spot (10).
I’m passingly familiar with the next featured 1981 album, Foreigner’s 4. I bought it for $5 a couple of years ago because it seemed like an album I should own.
4 was, appropriately, the rock band’s fourth album. I was going to write that it was by far their most successful, but a quick check revealed that, while this album sold 6 million copies and spent 10 weeks in Billboard’s #1 spot, their 1978 album Double Vision actually outsold it by a million.
Yesterday I confessed to buying greatest hits albums by some artists whose work I’ve overlooked. I’m not ashamed to admit it.
But I’m still an album guy at heart. So the rest of this week I’ll feature songs from albums — not greatest hits compilations — that I bought to fill in holes in my music collection.
Meet Me In Montauk 