Slow jams are dead. what most modern soulmen sing are really bump-and-grind tunes. They're not love songs but rather lyrically explicit paeans to the joys of carnality. Today's warblers don't have the time or inclination to bother with either romance or seduction. It's too much trouble. The bottom line is this is a bottom-line age, and that's all these singers are concerned with: the bottom.

Not so Brian McKnight. As his second album, I Remember You, affirms, McKnight is a balladeer of the old school. As a professional hyphenate (producer-instrumentalist-composer-vocalist, with the assistance of co-writers Robin Thicke and Brandon Barnes), he isn't afraid to reveal the sensitivity behind the contemporary male image. McKnight revels in being a hopeless romantic who fervently believes in the healing power of love.

Much like fellow tenor dreamer Smokey Robinson, McKnight is a musical craftsman. Gentle love songs like "Up Around My Way," "Anyway," "Marilie" and "Still in Love" feature impassioned singing and understated arrangements with enough jazz and gospel flavoring to prevent clogging of the arteries. And the lyrics offer the most similes you'll find this side of Dr. Seuss.

Even when McKnight tries to be naughty, his basic sweetness comes through. "On the Down Low" is, despite its sinewy groove, a cautionary tale about the perils of taking a lover for granted. Crooning in his lower register, an impressive McKnight similarly rides the slick rhythm of "Must Be Love," in which a Lothario finally encounters the real deal. McKnight's omnipresent moral streak also imbues his most overt song to date, "On the Floor," a tune less about sexual tumbling than a romantic roll on the hardwood.

McKnight's relative restraint comes as no surprise; one of his strengths as a singer is the projection of innocence. In Tipper Gore terms, only McKnight and, maybe, a pre-Dangerous Michael Jackson could get away with the insidiously catchy title track.

With a hook that revolves around Peanuts icons Lucy, Linus, Charlie Brown and Snoopy (who "never left the ground"), McKnight recounts the tenderness of childhood love. Earnestly sung with a tremulous falsetto, "I Remember You" is, perhaps, the conclusive proof of his true ambitions: to score a Disney animated film. Given McKnight's unique brand of soulful pop, I guarantee that he could finesse both The Lion King and Pocabontas. (RS 717)

RICHARD TORRES