If you’re of a certain age, you spent a lot of time on job sites, or in kitchens, or warehouses where some guy had a beat up old FM radio that he played all day.
No cassettes (too much of a drain on the batteries), just classic FM radio. Zep, Styx, Clapton, Seger, Bad Company, etc, etc. all day long, every day. And, as it turns out, a lot of Foreigner.
So being a metal-head myself, the songs would just kind of wash over me, but they did help pass the day. And I learned them by sheer, brute repetition.
And then a while ago, I looked through their catalog on Amazon, and was blown away by just how many mega hits they had.
Which is weird. I’ve never met a big Foreigner fan, never seen a T-shirt on somebody. But they have sold millions of records.
A lot of great bluesmen have been passed over. It’s irrational to induct Robert Johnson and omit his legendary secret teacher and be nominating pop stars like Mariah Carey.