By 1986, touring for Foreigners platinum hit Agent Provocateur had come to a close, and lead guitarist and founder, Mick Jones left for a seven month trip around the world with his wife. Finding this out, singer Lou Gramm went to the head of Atlantic Records and said during Jones' absence that this would be the perfect time for him to release a solo album. The end result was 1987's Ready Or Not.
Upon its release, Gramm was invited to head out on tour with Steve Miller as his opening act. While his plan was to complete the entire series of shows, an unceremonious call from Jones would interrupt this indefinitely. From the mouth of Gramm himself, Jones gave him an ultimatum of either coming back to record an album, or Jones would find another singer to front Foreigner.
Unhappy, Gramm returned to the studio. The singer felt his bandmate had intentionally sabotaged the success of his solo album by all but forcing him to cut his promotion short. Allegedly, Jones also went to the head of Atlantic himself, and informed him that if the label continued to promote Gramm's solo work that Foreigner would be done. Without warning, the label cut all support. Ready Or Not was 15,000 sales away from going gold.
Back in the studio, Gramm remained unhappy with Jones, not only for his disruption of the album, but because the guitarist had taken more of an interest in keyboards, adopting the synthesizer as a core part of the song structures. Gramm told Jones flat out that this wasn't the type of band he wanted to be in. Regardless, Gramm stayed the course, which ultimately led to the album, Inside Information.
But, let's take a step back to Ready Or Not. Not only to listen to it, but to dive look a little more at the lead single, Midnight Blue. Though he stated he couldn't remember anymore what album Foreigner were working on, Gramm has noted that he initially offered the song to Jones to be included. After hearing it, and even attempting to play it, the song was declined, something Gramm was secretly happy about.
Ready Or Not opens with the title track, which sets a solid tone of hard rock, a sound very reminiscent of prior Foreigner work. In fact, as a whole, the album sounds like it could easily be tucked into the Foreigner catalog.
To pause for a moment, that's one thing I've never understood about artists who go solo from their bands, only to make album that sound equivalent to the group they desperately wanted a break from. Steve Perry did this, as did Gloria Estefan, Debbie Harry, and Ric Ocasek, to name a few. To me, when you take the time to go solo, it should be to express yourself artistically in a different way. Otherwise, what's the point?
Something else that stands out amongst the songs is the heavy use of keyboards. I find it ironic that one of Gramm's biggest gripes with Jones was the excessive use of synthesizers, yet they are a very clear aspect of his solo work. Yes, there is a mix of solid guitar work, and perhaps I'm missing the full story. It was, after all, just a quick statement he made during an interview, without deep diving into the whole scenario. This, however, is just an observation, and not a dig at the album.
Another thing I noticed, and probably the biggest aspect, was that the majority of the songs were just okay. This is another flaw I've seen with artists who decide to go solo. When nobody is there to tell you no, try something different, or that something simply isn't the best, you end up releasing mediocrity. Prince immediately comes to mind as the biggest offender of this one, but Lou Gramm isn't exempt.
As a whole, Ready Or Not is simply not that good. If this solo effort were the world's introduction to Gramm, I have doubts that it would have impacted as big as it did. While I don't hate this album, I will say his solo effort for The Lost Boys soundtrack, also released in 1987, is better than any of the hits on here.
I did grab a few tunes for my shuffle list, which included Ready Or Not, Midnight Blue, If I Didn't Have You, Chain Of Love, and Lover Come Back. However, if you were to ask me how any of those went, with exception of Midnight Blue, I wouldn't be able to tell you. They piqued my interest at the time, as many songs so often do that get added to my shuffle, but quickly left my mind.
Again, I didn't hate this album. I just felt it could have been better, and more unique from the familiar Foreigner sound it adopts.
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| THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS July 7, 1984 |
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