Diana Ross' first album of originals in over 20 years and first studio LP since the covers-oriented
I Love You is neither the unqualified triumph nor the disgrace it could have been.
Thank You is constructed as a major return. Although
Ross co-wrote eight of the songs and did some of the recording at her home studio, it involves multiple teams of writers and producers, was pieced together from other sessions in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and London, and features
the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and
London Symphony Orchestra separately on over half the cuts.
Ross seems much more invested in these songs than she did on her 1999 and 2006 efforts. She puts her all into these positive messages of gratitude, support, and unity, no matter how much the lyrics resemble mixed-and-matched phrases from inspirational memes. Conviction is always evident in her soothing voice, even when it's modulated to a jarring extent or sounds somewhat garbled. The clearest bid for a smash is the one produced by hitmaker
Jack Antonoff, "I Still Believe," whose fully tricked-out modern disco is so sweeping and grand that
Annie Clark's guitar is barely audible. That and other songs clearly attempt to recapture moments from
Ross' past -- the
Supremes era and later solo ballads and dancefloor hits -- and then there's "Beautiful Love," a ballad that seems to have
Lionel Richie's "Hello" in mind despite its maternal perspective. That song is among eight collaborations with
Troy Miller (
Laura Mvula,
Gregory Porter). The four made with the hipper Triangle Park team are more adventurous, veering from the stiff dancefloor jumble "Tomorrow" to "Let's Do It," a motivational number that finely melds U.K. garage and synth funk (a world apart from the like-titled
Cole Porter composition
Ross reinterpreted on
Blue). ~ Andy Kellman