In my book, Richard Thompson's work up through Hand of Kindness in 1983 qualifies him as one of the all-time greats, but for some reason, after that he lost me all but completely. He's obviously still a guitar god (though I saw him live, at my gf's insistence, within the last year and frankly I thought he was phoning it in a bit by this point), but something big went out of his songwriting for me. Spiritual intensity, or conviction, or something. He just never seems to have written any songs since then that really feel like they needed to have been written. (And aaaggh, I know how his cult loves that motorcycle song, but I don't.)
Because Thompson's early work seems so inspired, this analogy comes to mind: Bob Dylan once said that after some years in limbo, he had to figure out how to do consciously what he had been able to do unconsciously. I think RT forgot how to do the latter and never managed to do the former.
So, hmmm, he goes from smash to trash one album after dumping Linda, and half the songs on that one are about her. Coincidence? I've always suspected that she may have been not only a great singer, but the best muse/critic/quality control he ever had.