Customer Reviews

Foreigner

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Many fans and critics feel that Cat Stevens overstepped with this album. I couldn't disagree more. Being a Stevens fan and an accomplished musician myself, I recognize the title track, Foreigner Suite, for what it is. A Masterpiece!

I have been listening to this track for thirty years and I still discover musical nuances that I hadn't heard before. The arrangements, orchestrations, phrasings and lyrics in this 18 minute opus are nothing less than genius. If Mozart were alive in the 20th/21st century he would be writing music like this. If one views Foreigner Suite as a mere album track it would be a mistake. This work is a symphony.

Every part transitions so seamlessly into the next that the 18 minutes seem like 8. The emotions Foreigner Suite elicits range from joy to sadness, from exuberance to melancholy.

I can't think of an artist, other than perhaps Elton John, who could write music with such consistent emotion and quality. Not only could Cat Stevens write such achingly beautiful and complex music but he, along with several accomplished backup musicians, could perform it flawlessly live. I will never forget the two times I experienced Foreigner Suite live.

The first was on the hit ABC TV show of the seventies called "In Concert". It was on Friday nights at 11:30 and it was simulcast in stereo on local FM stations across the country, KSFX being the San Francisco station I would listen to. Back then there was no such thing as stereo television.

The second time I heard Foreigner Suite live was, in fact, live and in person. One of the best concerts I ever experienced was Cat Stevens at the Oakland Coliseum Arena in the mid seventies. He performed all eighteen minutes perfectly, before the days of computers and sequencers.

All that's left to say is, if you're new to Cat Stevens, you haven't heard his best until you've heard Foreigner Suite. If you're a true fan then I don't need to convince you. And if you're one of the people who dismissed this incredible work of art as mediocre after one or two listens because it didn't fit the mold of what you consider to be a "hit record" or a "Cat Stevens" record then you truly can't hear the music and nothing I say will change your mind. This record broke the mold and is a true masterpiece.

I purchased this CD re-release about 4 years ago, perhaps a different mix than the one referred to by Mr Vincze in his review. My CD version sounds just like the original vinyl release without the scratches. I own all except 1 or 2 releases by CS and saw him perform live twice. I care nothing about his spiritual quest, but his work is some of the greatest in all of pop music. Foreigner Suite is my favorite of all Cat's albums, followed by Numbers. This was a great musical experiment. I was in dis-belief the first 3 times I listened to the cut "Foreigner Suite". I couldn't believe that such a wonderful, musical, joyful, intense and l-o-n-g cut had been released by a major artist.

Foreigner and Numbers are very different from his great commercial albums (Tea & Teaser) but if you are a Cat fan you should give these albums a chance.

This CD rates in my top-10 "desert island essentials".

There are very few singer-songwriters who have a unique sound and a substantial body of work. After years of TV commercials for Cat Stevens, this young reviewer (23 years old) got pretty sick of hearing the sound of Cat Stevens' songs in 15-second segments. With the soundtrack to Harold and Maude, I began to love Cat Steven's unique phrasing and personal writing style. I heard the major albums, which are great, but I found a real gem with Foreigner. The first side is an interesting experiment that sounds grandiose today (though the recordings/engineering on this album are wonderful in general). His thoughts are allowed to flow in this longer piece, which allows Cat's songwriting to "breathe" and ramble outside the constraints of radio-ready singles. The second side is great as well. There are shorter songs, but they are murky and enigmatic, showing a dark side of Cat. My favorite track is "How Many Times," a really gut-wrenchingly soulful piece about the monotony of a life without meaning.

I have to admit, I liked the song Foreigner Suite when I first heard it, but I didn't love it. With this, you HAVE to listen to it a few times, especially if you were expecting his "tillerman" sound to come out of it. Now, I LOVE IT!!! Again, I didn't like How Many Times and 100 I Dream at first either, and now I love them too. This might be the kind of album some have to get used to, but it's certainly worth it to give it a few listens.

This is one of my favorite albums I must say... it has the best love song that has ever been written...the perfect thing to play to a loved one...

Now although this album doesn't have many tracks... the first tracks 18 minutes seems to somewhat pay back those other missing tracks. And it does it with style.

If I have five different versions on this album (The LP, Tape, Old CD Version and the New Limited Edition Pack version) then surly you aught to have one.

"Foreigner" was the last of the original Cat Stevens albums that I purchased and after a 10 year wait I think it was worth it. Although not as powerful as "Teaser and the Firecat" nor as seamless as "Tea for the Tillerman" I found it much more thought provoking than "Buddah and the Chocolate Box", "Catch Bull at Four", "Izitso" and "Matthew and Son". The Suite has one of the best blends of guitar and piano that I've heard from recordings from the 70s. Even though Cat's pursuit of the truth is evident in the tracks it can still be enjoyed without pondering on each of the lyrics. "Foreigner Suite" and "The Hurt" are reminiscent of the profound lyrics and smooth melancholic melodies that he used with songs such as "Lady D'Arbanville" and "Wild World". This is a must for any Cat Stevens fan and at the very least makes outstanding driving music.

i think this is a great album. i love the foreigner suite. its one of my all time favoite lovesongs! 100 i dream is great too!

I guess quite a few Cat Stevens fans got excited when this album was released, but I wasn't one of them. I can't give it fewer than four stars, just because it's Cat Stevens and for its time (and its place in his career) it's rather daringly experimental. But it's not one of my favorites.

For one thing, "Foreigner Suite" itself seems to me to be much ado about nothing. My reaction, then and now, was about what it was to Jethro Tull's _Thick as a Brick_: hmm, this is interesting, I guess. (And _Thick as a Brick_ grew on me; this didn't.)

For another, the four shorter songs are mostly unremarkable. Three of them just sit there. The best of the four, "The Hurt," would have been better if it had been better produced, but it's always sounded to me as though the instruments are out of tune with one another.

Paul Samwell-Smith would never have allowed that to happen. But Cat produced this one himself, and I think his production was far less successful than on the later _Numbers_.

Cat completists (of whom I am one) will want this one, and it _is_ worth listening to. But to my own mind, it seems to be much overrated and too self-consciously "progressive."

Now here's a little history for the uninitiated:

"Cat Stevens" was the stage name of Steven Georgiou, who was born in the U.K. in 1948 of a Cypriot father and a Swedish mother. Something of a musical prodigy, he released his first two albums well before he was twenty years old and was on his way to becoming a "pop star." He then fell victim to a terrible case of tuberculosis. When he returned to singing and songwriting, he had taken a decidedly more reflective turn and found himself delivering absolutely beautiful stuff with no apparent commercial potential. That was fine with him; he was no longer particularly interested in commercial success. But, perhaps ironically, his delicate confessional songs and his deliberate avoidance of "commercial-ness" turned him into a huge international star.

Well, he eventually (1977) became a Muslim and adopted the name "Yusuf Islam" (after the biblical dream-interpreter Joseph). At about that time he also left the music industry. He has since recorded a couple of albums about Islam, but his last collection of commercial music was _Footsteps In The Dark_ (ostensibly a second volume of his "greatest hits," but in fact a set of lesser-known favorites and a handful of tunes not available elsewhere).

You can feel safe in ignoring the comments from people who think he has become "rigid" and/or "intolerant." The simple fact is that nearly every Cat Stevens album (the exceptions being his first two) is filled with "spiritual seeking," and he eventually found what he was looking for in Islam. His "recent" (actually, 1989-90) remarks on Salman Rushdie were not what you probably think they were (and in particular he didn't call for Rushdie's death). He's no more "rigid" or "intolerant" than the rest of us; he's simply a religiously observant Muslim, that's all. There's a problem here only for people who think seekers should never get around to finding, or that traditional religion is more "dogmatic" than irreligion.

His songs don't need to "transcend" their creator in order to be great; there's no need to run down Yusuf in order to elevate Cat. And since they _were_ written during his "seeker" stage, they're suitable for everybody -- future Muslims or not.

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.

I am not very familiar with the works of Cat Stevens. In fact apart from his chart hits the only record I know well is Foreigner Suite. I have been adding to my music collection lately and decided on some Cat Stevens. I have been reading the reviews of his albums and was amazed to learn that Foreigner Suite is regarded as a poor record.
I say amazed because Foreigner Suite is a brilliant record and has prompted me to buy 4 more Cat Stevens albums. I especially like the 18 minute long track called Foreigner Suite but I like all the tracks on this album. The 18 minute long track is engaging, emotionally satisfying and developes into a coherent whole. I am a lifelong Bob Dylan fan and I give this track the same respect I give to Dylan's work.
Don't worry about the poor reviews if you are thinking of buying this record. The man has created a masterpiece.