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It is a sad fact of life that you can date yourself by being disappointed again — by a new Paul McCartney record, so I'd like to say this latest effort by him is better than it is. Unfortunately, I can't, which is all the more disappointing considering the high hopes aging Beatlemaniacs like me had for the album's several, much-hyped McCartney-Elvis Costello collaborations. Of course, nobody expects The Decline of the West from this particular ex-Beatle, and, to be fair, at least one of the songs he wrote with Costello ("You Want Her Too") actually has a lyric worthy of McCartney's late songwriting partner, and another, the soon-to-be-ubiquitous (on the radio) "My Brave Face," has a genuinely likable, melodic profile. Other than those two, however, there's very little here that's worthy of McCartney's pedigree.
Both "Figure of Eight," a not-awful bit of power pop a la Squeeze, and the concluding (on LP) "Motor of Love," in which the Cars' Greg Hawkes adds some nice keyboard touches reminiscent of Brian Wilson, linger in the memory ever so slightly. The rest — a little fake reggae ("How Many People"), a little fake Let It Be ("Put It There") — is, at best, high gloss fluff.
So why does a guy with certifiable genius credentials continue to make such boring records? You've got me, although in this case it may be attributable to an overabundance of producers, like the overrated Trevor Horn. Whatever the reason, Flowers in the Dirt is bound to strike most folks as yet another depressing chapter in the ongoing musical decline of a once-splendid pop figure.
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