Guys, these are Huge assumptions about process without any evidence. How do you know how the songs were constructed? I know you don't like it and that's fine, but at least give some benefit of the doubt to the hard work that has gone into these new songs. Sometimes the best song can take 10 minutes to write, other times it can take years....
Thank you for asking good questions instead of just saying that we're fools and can't understand a thing like some people here do.
I dissect every Mark's song from a guitar player's perspective and while I transcribe the songs it gives me a chance to read all the lyrics as well and for instance notice the word "bro" in one of the songs among other things. All the little details. Not so little details — copy and paste. For some songs I literally just copy and paste most of the chords and that's it. It's very easy to transcribe the song, takes 5 minutes, it's easy to listen to it, takes 5 minutes, it's easy to understand it, takes 5 minutes. Too easy. And it's actually too easy to forget it completely.
This is what I call flatness of the song — it doesn't challenge you. Have an intro, repeat a little idea, then have one verse, second verse, chorus, have a solo, then third verse, got to have a middle section, that's fine. Finish with one other verse and loop the solo over the intro's harmony. That's the formula. I know as a fact that "Walk Of Life" was written by Mark very quickly. The song ended up being a hit, so sometimes it really works.
But from what I can see most of the songs from the new album are as easy as the song can be. So naturally you can come to the conclusion that it was written fast as well. But there's Mark's songs that are carefully crafted, many of songs like that and you can almost fell it took a very long time to write. And that's exactly the type of songs people are usually refer to as "masterpieces". No wonder why it happens, but certainly there's no too much "masterpieces" on the new album.
