Since its inception, Foreigner has been led by English journeyman rocker Mick Jones (former member of Nero and the Gladiators, Spooky Tooth and The Leslie West Band) who, in early 1976, met with McDonald and formed Foreigner with Lou Gramm (ex-Black Sheep), Dennis Elliott, Al Greenwood, and Ed Gagliardi as a sextet. Jones came up with the name from the fact that he, McDonald, and Elliott were English, while Gramm, Greenwood, and Gagliardi were Americans.
The band's debut album Foreigner was released in March 1977 and sold more than four million copies in the United States, staying in the Top 20 for a year with such hits as "Feels Like the First Time," "Cold as Ice" and "Long Long Way From Home." Their second album, Double Vision (released in June 1978), topped their previous, selling five million records and spawned "Hot Blooded," the title track "Double Vision" and "Blue Morning Blue Day."
Their third album, Head Games, which was referred to by Gramm as their "grainiest" album, was also successful because of the thunderous "Dirty White Boy" and another title track hit "Head Games."
"Urgent" is the first single from their hit album 4 in 1981. Foreigner went into the studio with producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange, best known at the time as producer of hard rock band AC/DC. Foreigner's sound wasn't quite as heavy, and the band worked with then-unknown Thomas Dolby to program and play synthesizer. Dolby's work can be heard on "Urgent", along with a saxophone solo by Motown great Junior Walker.
The song entered the U.S. pop charts the week ending July 4, 1981, and reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, holding that spot for the entire month of September. "Urgent" hit #1 on the Billboard Rock Tracks chart, a position it held for four weeks.
"Urgent" was the most successful single from the 4 album on album-oriented rock radio, though it was outsold by the album's next single, "Waiting for a Girl Like You", which reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1981 and remained at that spot through the end of the following January, for a total of ten weeks, being certified Gold. 4 went Gold and Platinum during the chart run of the "Urgent" single. The album has since been certified multi-platinum by the RIAA, for selling over six million copies in the U.S. alone.
The song was Foreigner's second-best-selling single (after "I Want to Know What Love Is") in both Canada and Sweden, reaching #1 in Canada in September 1981 and #20 in Sweden in March 1982. In Australia, "Urgent" peaked at #24 in August 1981. In the UK, the song reached only #54 upon its first release in 1981. In 1982, after "Waiting for a Girl Like You" went Top Ten there, "Urgent" was re-released, this time reaching only slightly higher, peaking at #45.
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