While it’s nice to see an all-time great still doing his stuff, joy turns to mortification when the star has apparently been kidnapped by aliens. Nine of the 12 songs on Thanks… have been written by a certain Billy Osborne, and are distinguished only by their plasticky jazz-funk arrangements and their staggering unsuitability for the artist. It’s horrifying to hear him groaning his way through a brain-dead shag-fest like “How Did You Feel The Morning After”, while the concluding piece, “Mother”, finds Ray drowning in the most jaw-droppingly mawkish dollop of slime since “Lady In Red”.
Deeply regrettable.
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