Released on 14 December 1984, "Agent Provocateur" was the fifth studio album by British-American rock band Foreigner, the album peaked at No. 1 in the UK and No. 5 in the United States, the album spawned five singles including the band biggest single to date "I Want To Know What Love Is" that reached No. 1 on the UK/US.
The band started to work in the album in June 1983, with producer Trevor Horn, and officially began to record in early October 1983, but things changed a lot by Christmas holidays when the band joined him in England to resume the recording: Horn
soon backed out of the project, feeling that he and the band were
heading in different directions and that it was not going to work out.
In hindsight, the band recognised that Horn's production style wasn't really suited to their music, according to drummer Dennis Elliott, because Horn wanted to make the band more electronic than we wanted to be. Eventually, another month was spent trying to look for another producer to fill his shoes, subsequently hiring Alex Sadkin, who was busy finishing the Thompson Twins' Into the Gap album.
Sadkin helped rekindle the project when it was on the verge of total
collapse, but despite that, according to Jones, recording still never
seemed to end: the sessions had been dogged from the very start and
continued to remain unfocused, according to Sadkin: "The Foreigner project a couple
years back, on the other hand, just seemed to go on and on. Everyone,
including the band, got really pissed off with it. They're used to it,
though, and I wasn't, so it just threw me. I couldn't believe what was
going on! There was a problem with people not coming in, then the songs wouldn't be really
ready, even when while the album was being mixed the lyrics were still being
written!, things were being changed right up to the last minute, and that
is what took a long time. That is why I don't want to go into the
studio when somebody wants to write the stuff there; it just takes too
long and it isn't worth it, it doesn't come out right. You can't write
properly in the studio because you're under pressure. How can you really
be creative when you're watching the clock going round burning up the
money?".
The album took the band to scale new global lattitudes achieving important things but unfortunately things went wrong for the band, remember the hit "Waiting For A Girl Like You", Thomas Dolby synthesizers and emotional vocals by Lou Gramm set the path to follow, at leat for guitarist Mick Jones, who wanted a second hit like that, so that was the main reason they decided to pick Trevor Horn to produce at the beginning to produce the record, but on the other hand, Gramm was reluctant and he was right, because he tought this track "I Want To Know What Love Is" despite being dreamy and twith that hypnotical feel, would do a serious harm to the band, and eventually that was the price the band had to pay for.
Even when the album has huge rock songs, for instance the opener "Tooth And Nail", the follow-up "Reaction To Action", and the mid-tempo "A Love In Vain", and why not pick "That Was Yesterday" with Tom Bailey background vocals from the Thompson Twins, was a terrific hit single, features
a catchy chorus and a nifty synthesizer lick. "Reaction to Action" and
"Down on Love" were both minor hits, and finally "Growing Up the Hard Way"another minor hit.
Unfortunately the album that brought a huge result and commercial success, cost the life of the band itself, Lou Gramm moved away from the band and went onto his solo-career, Jones eventually did the same despite the band reunited periodically in the '90s, the would broke the band apart earlier in the next decade.
Agent Provocateur Track List:
1. Tooth And Nail
2. That Was Yesterday
3. I Want To Know What Love Is
4. Growing Up The Hard Way
5. Reaction To Action
6. Stranger In My Own House
7. A Love In Vain
8. Down On Love
9. Two Different Worlds
10. She's Too Tough
