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Check any record store bin for FOREIGNER product and you will find no less than four "hits" compilations so was this one really needed? Actually, yes it was and here is why. First off, the last compilation of FOREIGNER's work was a single disc, this is a double with 39 tracks and 15 of the seventeen from "THE VERY BEST AND BEYOND" are repeated here. The other compilations are even narrower in scope and focus on the band's radio hits from the first four albums and nothing else. This near box set package rounds all the bases and then takes a nostalgic lap around the entire field to showcase lesser heard numbers form the bands considerable catalogue as well as solo tracks from both Mick Jones and Lou Gramm's solo recordings. The biggest "bonus" treats are the pair of SPOOKY TOOTH classics, "All Sewn Up" and "The Hoofer," that show a very young Jones refining his pre-commercial rock guitar chops. Complete-ist FOREIGNER fans will like that a "Lowdown and Dirty" from the under-appreciated "UNUSUAL HEAT" record is also included here though you can probably get that entire album for $1.99 in any cut-out bin. Pity too because FOREIGNER sans Lou Gramm wasn't the best that band ever was but it was still very, very good. Further argument for the preference of this collection over the single disc compilations comes in the extensive writing and photography included in the packaging and enclosed booklet. The biography of the band contained herein is far from exhaustive but if the Readers Digest version of a bands career is what you prefer to some 500-page tome of debauchery on the road this is definitely your ticket. By the end of disc two you have traversed an entire career and nearly three decades of classic Hard Rock and Pop that continues to this day to represent a sizable chunk of radio programming. Great band, great music and a great buy.

Buy this album