The other Mick Jones

Foreigner - I Want To Know What Love Is



It sounds like Lou Gramm is grimacing through each word of this song. And what an awful song it is - 80s synth-keyboards alternately playing minor chord arpeggios and big swells of pseudo-string-organ-thingys with huge fade-ins and -outs. Vomit. . And on top of all of this, the backing vocals that encompass both castrato, courtesy of Jennifer Holliday, who has sung backup for Michael Jackson, Luther Vandross, and Barbara Streisand (enough said), and choralising from the New Jersey Mass Choir. Mick Jones (not THE Mick "I was in The Clash" Jones, but the other Mick Jones) should be blamed for this abomination of the ballad form.

Even Lou Gramm, who did something in Foreigner that I didn't really bother to research, felt that this song was not rock enough and unrepresentative of the band's output. Clearly he also had a problem with the swimming pools full of money that the song made the band.

I'd be happy if I never had to hear it again. Research done. This is one of those songs that really doesn't deserve to be anywhere near this list. It's execrable, detestable and basically just dreck . And not in a good way.

Verdict: Sometimes not knowing is better

Tomorrow: Beastie Boys - Sabotage