By Вen Li
Like so many previous highly-polished albums that clearly cost a pretty penny to make, self-proclaimed First Lady of Def Soul Patti LaBelle’s Timeless Journey may look good but lacks musical substance.
As this is a so-called “classic” album, at some point in history she must have dazzled… somebody, at least twice. She must have done so with such awe-inspiring choruses as “Mm Mm Mm / Mm Mm Mm / Mm Mm Mm / Your love is everything” from track 8, “Mm Mm Mm.”
Elsewhere, she rearranges “Do you hear my cry / Do you believe in me / Cuz I believe in you / Hear my cry” into track 6 by re-ordering the phrases. The copy and paste action continues into “Two Steps Away” with “I’m two steps away / I’m two steps away / I’m two steps away / I’m two steps away”. It is as though the CD came with built-in skips.
As a soul album, Timeless Journey is uninspired and needlessly repetitive, without any strong message, theme or cohesion. Neither Patti LaBelle’s generic vocals nor the rhythmically perfect instrumentation indicate human passion or talent contributed to the making of this album at any point.