Being over 40 doesn't automatically make you crap — Iggy still kicks ass, Tom Waits is god and Neil Young still creaks his rocking bones in fine style. Costello, too, is still occasionally capable of packing a killer punch that sets him apart from the cosy, back-slapping old trouper scene that a smug old bastard like Byrne belongs to.
But this is a mawkish, dull ballad, so "brilliantly constructed" that it carefully manages to avoid a tune.
Basically, it's so-called "classic pop," music for CD owners who like to think that they "rock," pop for and by people long past their sell-by date.
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