1 Foreigner Suite
2 The Hurt
3 How Many Times
4 Later
5 100 I Dream

From Amazon.com

Felined Ambition

 Album Rating: (3 of 5 stars)

Review Comments: While in his creative and commercial peaks as an artist, Cat Stevens was feeling both an artistic and spiritual restlessness that culminated in "Foriegner" in 1973. He chose to produce himself, composed an 18 minute single side "suite," added a string section, more keyboards than acoustic guitars, female singers, and took artistic aim at the likes of Thick as a Brick or Abbey Road. Folks looking for the delicate folk-songs in the vein of "Peace Train" or "Wild World" were caught off guard by ambitiously orchestrated "Foreigner Suite" and the sad, lonely man singing "How Many Times."

Since this wasn't a rehash of Tea for the Tillerman or Teaser and the Firecat, there was a lot of confusion and outright hostility towards "Foreigner" at the time. Of the four more conventional songs on side two, only "The Hurt" entered the Top 40. Given the benefit of a quarter century, the album has in fact aged nicely. The suite has obviously remained a favorite of Stevens/Yusuf over the years, since his most recent recordings (Roadsinger and An Other Cup) have used some of the musical motifs found therin. He may have been growing weary of the rock star game, but you can't fault him for wanting to stretch out.

excellent

 Album Rating: (4 of 5 stars)

Review Comments: You have to give it to Cat Stevens: he was interested in being more than just a folkie. Don't forget Steven's was mod before he was folk, and after three pure folk albums, Mona Bone Jakon, Tea for the Tillerman and Catch Bull at Four.

In the 1970s, most folkers upgraded with top sessionmen, but stuck to three minute songs. Cat actually seemed more engaged. Forigner is him taking on progressive rock.

A suite covering the first side was something typical in 1973--if you were Yes or ELP. But Steven's widdled together songs ala Abbey Road, and hired a band of funk pros--Pretty Puride, Phil Upchurch. The arrangements are ambitoius--flutes, horns, Pretty's trademark wooshing highhat.

But what makes "Forigner Suite" work so well is the structures it mines and lean and funky. No big solos or other histrionic accrobatics here--these suite parts sound like well written songs, and at times, approach proto-disco.


The rest are great songs: the second half of Forigner does not have the massive sweep of the first, but the 70s craft is top notch, even if the songs are only pretty good. Still, Rolling Stone album guide does not like this album--Cat should not have been progressive, because WE don't like progressive.

Which really means that Stevens was definately on to something.

One of my all time favorite albums

 Album Rating: (5 of 5 stars)

Review Comments: The "Foreigner" album has been one of my favorites since I bought it originally in the '70s. I no longer have a record player but missed listening to it so much that I bought it again as a CD.

Was Foreigner Too Far Reaching?

 Album Rating: (5 of 5 stars)

Review Comments: Heck NO!
Breaking with the folk music of the Sixties, it was almost 1980, even past the GLAM ROCKERs of the 70's, Cat Stevens created a Masterpiece, which is his best work to date.
Foreigner Suite still blows my mind when I hear it.
Get real people, was he suppose to be creating music dating back to the American folk music of the working class that started in the 50's when we were entering Synth music of the Eighties.
This IS his most explosive and relevant work to date. AGELESS

Don't be afraid - it's as good as "Tea" or "Teaser," and even goes beyond

 Album Rating: (5 of 5 stars)

Review Comments: This gem, issued 1973, well belongs to Cat's most fruitful period - the early 70's - his creativity then culminated. The music, the lyrics, the rhythms (speaking of the Cyprian roots) were extremely straightforward, spontaneous, without any shadow of intelectualism. Many reviewers here put this album quite inappropriately as a then trendy prog rock attempt. In my opinion, this is a sad misunderstanding of what Cat actually did. It may be that only because the word "suite" appears in the title of the first track ("Foreigner Suite" - 18 min, i.e. half of the LP/reissued CD), some listeners may deem this to be something very experimental or overcomplicated. However, by no means can this record be compared to what the prog rock groups, such as Yes, Jethro Tull or ELP (as stated in the editorial Amazon.com review), produced by that time. Musically, this has nothing to do with the somewhat experimental music of that kind. The Foreigner Suite is, in fact, just a medley of altogether some 6 tunes, which are now and then connected by several tacts of full-blood music with typical Cat Stevens rhythms, usually produced by Cat's syncopating piano or by woodwinds. These tiny pieces of the "connecting music" naturally fit to the songs themselvelves; occasionally, one song simply turns to the other one even without this connecting material. Nevertheless, this is still the genuine, typical music of Cat Stevens of that time, full of positive energy and emotion. Only big masters with huge creativity can afford to only gently indicate a catchy motif, and without numerous repetitions and refrains, simply go further (after all, this applies to classical music as well). A lot of pop stars would make a 2-LP of these songs. I cannot agree with e.g. R.L. Miller's review on these pages, indicating that the tunes in the "suite" were so weak that Cat couldn't make common songs out of them. Wow, the opposite is true. Cat has made sketches of great melodies, and skilfully connected them into one functional composition. Side 2 of the original LP consists of 4 similarly strong individual songs, all 5-star, without a weaker one (this is, again, in common with the 1970 records of Cat Stevens). The atmosphere of earthy happiness from music in the entire album was maybe amplified by the milieu of Jamaica, where all the tracks were recorded (only the strings and brass/woodwinds were added in New York). I think that there is maybe some unifying element, hard to define, over the mood of all the tracks, making this album very special - I have not felt this from any other Cat's album.
The booklet brings the lyrics and elementary info- on the musician line-ups on each track. The sound of the reissue is superb and matches to what you would expect of Cat's songs. In summary, I am extremely happy with this reissued version of one of the best Cat's records. Simply, it is him.