Head Games (1979)


  
 
 1. Dirty White Boy
 2. Love on the Telephone
 3. Women
 4. I'll Get Even With You
 5. Seventeen
 6. Head Games
 7. The Modern Day
 8. Blinded By Science
 9. Do What You Like
 10.Rev on the Red Line

 

By the time Head Games rolled around, Foreigner was three albums deep in as many years—and with each release, they were inching closer to figuring themselves out. The first album and Double Vision had done the job commercially, spawning a string of arena-ready hits, but the albums themselves were often uneven, with solid singles propping up a fair share of filler. Chalk that up to a band still finding its footing.

But with Head Games, the training wheels come off. Gone are the overworked synthesizer backdrops masquerading as “art rock,” and in their place is a leaner, more confident sound. The band isn’t reinventing itself so much as finally committing to what works. The result? A tighter, more focused record that rocks with consistency and purpose. There are still synths in the mix—this is Foreigner, after all—but they’re used tastefully, adding atmosphere rather than hijacking the arrangements.

As expected, the big radio hits are up front and unmissable. Dirty White Boy remains one of their most gloriously brainless singles—hooky, raunchy, and built to blast from car speakers. The title track, Head Games, is similarly effective: a taut, snarling rocker that sounds like it was written for a stadium singalong. Women, with its oddly punk-adjacent energy, rounds out the trifecta, even if its lyrics haven’t exactly aged with grace.

What sets this album apart from its predecessors, though, is the strength of the deeper cuts. Side one, in particular, is impressively strong across the board. The credit here likely goes, at least in part, to producer Roy Thomas Baker (of Queen and The Cars fame), who manages to clean up the sound without sanding off the band’s edge.

The production is sharp, punchy, and cohesive—a welcome change from the more cluttered efforts that came before. Even the Mick Jones vocal cameo (The Modern Day) is better than usual. Rather than veer off into his own stylistic cul-de-sac, Jones plays it straight, essentially doing his best Lou Gramm impression. And to his credit, it mostly works—though one can’t help but imagine how much more powerful the track might have been with Gramm at the mic. The album does lose a bit of steam toward the end. Rev on the Red Line tries hard but comes off more cheesy than charming, and Blinded by Science—a mellow closer—leans too heavily on a clunky rhyme scheme (“science” with “appliance,” no less) to make much of an impression. Neither track derails the album, but they do slightly soften the landing.

Still, by the time the final notes fade out, the takeaway is clear: Head Games is the sound of a band coming into its own. It doesn’t rewrite the Foreigner formula—it just executes it with more confidence and less pretense. And in doing so, it cemented their place in the pantheon of late ’70s rock acts who weren’t just passing through. No longer a “singles band,” Foreigner had officially arrived as a consistent album act—and the arena crowd was more than happy to come along for the ride.

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