I didn’t think anyone could be a more perfect candidate for this series than Dan Fogelberg, but I was wrong. This, folks, is a band that shouldn’t have new music. Hell, even the last Foreigner album was a record out of time and space, and that came out in 1995. By now, these guys should be collecting buffet passes for America’s finer casinos and playing “Hot Blooded” twice a night for politely appreciative crowds of Camaro owners and shut-ins. Maybe a stray new track or two on the compilations that dribble out once or twice a decade, sure…but an entire album of new Foreigner songs? They’re kidding, right?
But wait. Back up a minute, because that ‘95 Foreigner record — it was called Mr. Moonlight, stop laughing — was actually really good. And so, God help me, is Can’t Slow Down, the two-CD, one-DVD recession-busting value package that the current version of the band is peddling through a Walmart exclusive.
Let me be clear. I listened to, and loved, more than my fair share of ’80s AOR; if there was a rocker attempting a desperate late-career comeback during the decade, I was there, plunking my money down on the counter at the record store to own the undignified flailings of everyone from Chicago to Heart to Bad Company. I’ve never had any special affection for Foreigner, though; by the time I started collecting music, they were polluting the airwaves with “I Want to Know What Love Is,” which was followed by the even shittier “I Don’t Want to Live Without You” — and the less said about 1991’s Lou Gramm-less Unusual Heat, the better. Many a rock band has crumbled under the weight of platinum records, but Foreigner was unique — no sooner did they achieve mainstream success than Gramm and Jones were at each other’s throats, splitting and reuniting twice after 1990, destroying in the process not only Gramm’s burgeoning solo career, but Foreigner’s too. Of course, they would have been wiped off the map when grunge slouched onto the scene in the early ’90s, but they should have at least been intact, instead of dissolving from one of Atlantic’s crown jewels into a motley crew of hired hands tagging along with Jones on a series of progressively sadder tours. (more…)
I’m running through the streets of industrial Los Angeles cursing to myself. My eyes are searching, desperately scanning the sidewalk and disintegrating asphalt for a coat hanger. The sun beats down on me, I’m sweating profusely, and behind me my car is parked with the engine running and the keys locked inside it. Welcome to L.A., baby.
So I had a great idea. An entire post about fake rock bands — groups made up for your cinematic pleasure that, in spite of not actually being real bands, managed to put out a couple decent tunes for the soundtrack. The definitions of real and fake in this super-sub-category are wishy-washy. Some of these actors actually play their music, others don’t and are lip-synching to studio performers. Some of the groups represented are meant as serious depictions, while others are strictly satirical. Some aren’t getting represented at all here (inferring that if the key member of the band is named something like 
, your crappy movie didn’t make the cut.) Yes, a great idea, and an original idea! No one on the Internet has dared to do anything like this, not even my colleague 
If we’re starting with the obvious, then we’re obviously starting with Spinal Tap, the metal band consisting of David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean,) Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer.) In the now ubiquitous mockumentary, the actors actually recorded their own tunes, which is a rarity. Then again, the songs weren’t meant to be taken all that seriously, but to be the foil for generational musical satire. Ranging from hippy-dippy psyche-folk with “Listen to the Flower People,” to Yardbirdsian skiffle rock with “
was meant to be a joke. (A point of irony — “Gimme Some Money” was actually used in an American Express commercial, before the credit market was revealed to be as bogus as some of these bands…)
. Sure, there was plenty of help from special guest musicians like Dweezil Zappa, Joe Satriani and Slash, but it was still Tap at its core, and still satirical. It would be hard to hear “
