Following the considerable success of his previous four albums Cat decided to shake things up for 1973’s Foreigner. The album was largely recorded in Jamaica using a completely new group of musicians, save for Jean Roussel on keys. It was also Cat’s first self-produced album. Stylistically he wanted to explore some of the influence that he felt from R&B and soul music. The feeling of being a bit of an outsider in these genres helped to inspire the album’s title, as did the fact that he was, at the time, living in Rio de Janeiro.

In what would go on the be a running theme in Cat’s more experimental work, the critical response to Foreigner was not encouraging. There was a general inability or unwillingness to accept any deviation from the stylistic path set out by earlier records.