By 1977, The Jacksons had moved on from their earlier Hanna Barbera powersoul to embrace the more mature disco/dance scene that Michael would come to dominate. Ah yes, Michael - the four years since the last Jackson 5 hit had been a period of growing up. Voice now broken, gone is his previous beam of adolescent glee to be replaced by something more akin to the Jackson of his eighties salad days. And now no longer hampered by Motown restrictions, he sounds like a caged bird freed desperate to fly, but try as he might, he's kept grounded by the song itself. For sure, the chipped Chic guitar riff and smooth basslines have the best of intentions and the itself tune follows some interesting diversions (like that nagging "let me show you, let me show you" refrain) with Michael himself chiming in with his soon to be trademark yelps and whoops. So far so good, but although the component parts are there,'Show You The Way To Go' sounds less a well oiled machine and more a car engine that turns but refuses to fire.
And that's because Gamble and Huff's tune simply does not lock into groove forceful enough to carry the song along; it runs into too many dead ends and Michael's vocal tic ad-libs sound more like filler than anything spontaneously rebounding off the source material. By the time it fades out, the Jacksons sound like they've given up trying to motor and are content to simply push their vehicle across the finish line in a grunting rut of repetition. 'Show You The Way To Go' may well be an above par song for The Jacksons, but there's too much of Michael in it to make it sound anything other than a sub-standard Michael Jackson single. And if that sounds harsh, then I don't mean to be. Just fair.
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