Before hatching New Kids on the Block, pop Svengali Maurice Starr invented New Edition. Since Starr and the group parted company, the various members of the onetime Jackson 5 update have gone on to even greater success as they've attained maturity and independence. Alumnus Bobby Brown is a superstar, original lead singer Ralph Tresvant is readying a solo record, and now Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins and Ronnie DeVoe are making funk history.

That trio may be merely the boogie ballast on New Edition's love boat, but its debut offshoot album, Poison, stands as nothing less than an R&B classic. Working with a variety of writers and producers that includes Hank Shocklee's Public Enemy posse, braiding creamy leads with reedy raps and Dopplerized harmonies, juxtaposing hip-hop's beats and samples with pure pop's deepest aural beauty secrets, Bell Biv DeVoe has confected the rhythm masterpiece of the year.

"Poison," the most immediately gratifying groove to hit the air since Brown's "My Prerogative," has got the coolest sounds, the snakiest excuse for a backbeat, the crooningest bridge and the coldest cut ("Me and the crew used to do her!"). Hard to believe that the other Dr. Freeze production ("Dope!") is nearly as good. And then there's "B.B.D. (I Thought It Was Me)?" about a cocky stud who thinks the key to his lover's ardor is in his kiss, only to learn "she's like that with all the guys." Assembled by Shocklee with brother Keith, Eric "Vietnam" Sadler and co-writer Roney Hooks (and quoting slyly from Aretha's "Chain of Fools"), the unbelievably funky bed is only a setup for the perfect plot twist. By making B.B.D. the butt of its own sexist joke, the record gets to have it three ways: The boys strut their completely convincing love-man stuff, undercut the brag with hilarious style and reveal as much genuine camaraderie as you've heard on a record since the background vocals on Exile on Main Street. Bobby Brown can do the first, Biz Markie can do the second, and the Jungle Brothers can do the third. Only B.B.D. does all three.

"Let Me Know Something?!" follows with a perverse, funky groove, and then comes "Do Me!" a landmark in priapic obsession. Forget anything any horny guy ever said or begged in a car, in a subway, on a street corner or at a dance. If the true spirit of the male love jones could speak, its words would be B.B.D.'s: "Slap it up, flip it, rub it down, oh no!" Made unapologetically with an eye on the record-buying market and an ear to what gets played on the radio, B.B.D.'s heart is still with the Muses. This is one for the pantheon.

It's too bad for Johnny Gill that his first solo album since his pre-New Edition days comes out in the same month as that of his band mates. Also a former child star who was blessed even in those days with a scarily true baritone weapon, Gill gets the deluxe treatment from Motown and comes off like a handsome high schooler, wriggling in a rented prom tux. With every number produced either by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis or L.A. and Babyface – the Rolls-Royce and Bentley of black pop – Gill gets some great tracks and good songs, but he doesn't seem to know who he wants to be yet. He delivers the ingratiating LaFace ballad "My, My, My" faithfully but without the palpable emotional integrity that Babyface himself brought to the similar "Soon As I Get Home" on his own album. "Fairweather Friend" is a solid rewrite of Stevie Wonder's "As," and Gill renders it with a reasonable balance of amiability and amorousness. But listen to Jam and Lewis's "Rub You the Right Way," a love laser of a first single, and imagine how Alexander O'Neal would have torn into it. When Gill goes for his intensity button, you picture a man infuriated by a problematic bra strap – not the image you want in a boast of erotic deftness.

Gill seems poised midway between Freddie Jackson's gentle lover persona and the old Teddy Pendergrass slick seducer routine. For now, he sounds more like the man on top of the wedding cake than the one digging in to it.

Black music, given the current state of most black radio, is as restrictive as it's ever been. From the business standpoint, this music is "product"; it's part of a familiar, palatable, quality-controlled stream, designed to fill the airwaves and the record racks. And yet the narrow rules of the marketplace have stimulated more startling exceptions – Tracy, Terence, Lenny, Living Colour and others – than ever before.

Although no expense was spared – great talents were unleashed and the result is good – Johnny Gill sounds like the product that it is. Poison, on the other hand, teaches the transcendent pop lesson: Great product sounds like great music. (RS 582-583)

DAVITT SIGERSON