Sunday, November 4, 2007

Boogie Pilgrim

"Boogie Pilgrim", well, it boogies along amiably with a soft-shoe-shuffle type rhythm and a fair-to-middling melody, featuring falsetto vocals from Elton, would-be funky backing vocals from a host of fine singers, and keening SNL-style David Sanborn sax throughout- it's as slick as baby oil, produced to distraction, professional as all get out, and at a smidge over six minutes is a complete bore. What little life there is to be had in this derivative track is completely snuffed out via layers of production gloss and supersession backing.

Lyric content is just as vapid. While there's thankfully none of the usual Moves relationship angst here, the lyrics, which seem to be about some sort of street-level drug dealer, use a whole lot of cliche phrases ("Down on the jive talk/Down on the weather") to say nothing much at all.

Perhaps if they had reined it in a couple of minutes before they did, this might have been better. At their peak, Elton and his band/lyricist/production team could sometimes make magic out of slight material. Here, the team seems to have run out of fuel.

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