Culture Club's Colour by Numbers secures lead singer Boy George's place as a blue-eyed soul balladeer of the first rank. If he has yet to match the heights of the soul elite – the delicate refinement of Smokey Robinson or the rich gospel fervor of Gladys Knight, both of whom he sometimes resembles–Boy George is still artistically the real thing, a singer who continually and instinctively communicates passion in an era awash with cynical pseudosoul poseurs.

Colour by Numbers is by no means a weighty album. Like Kissing to Be Clever, Culture Club's second LP comes from the same school of trendy British pop that's produced ABC, Wham! U.K., Haircut One. Hundred and a dozen other brands of musical candy whose recipes blend synth-pop, Motown and third-world flavors. But unlike other albums of similar ilk, Colour by Numbers has gobs of emotion plastered as thickly as Boy George's makeup, and ten tunes that stick. And the band – drummer Jon Moss, keyboardist-guitarist Roy Hay and bassist Mikey Craig–cooks up a percolating brand of synth-pop that is more than just a quick, superficial ripoff.

Musically, "Karma Chameleon" recalls James Taylor's version of "Handy Man," though it's accelerated, synthed-up and frothed into a creamy sundae sprinkled with bluesy harmonica licks. The breezy pop-soul calypso "It's a Miracle" is one of several cuts in which Boy George faces off against backup singer Helen Terry. Theirs is a provocative match, rather like Michael Jackson and Aretha Franklin, in which Terry's scat-singing tough mama responds to Boy George's imploring vulnerability with maternal strength. In the hauntingly lovely "Black Money," the relationship between the two is at its deepest and most mysterious. Boy George's repeated question, "Do you deal in black money?" provokes a gospel-style interchange that implies at least two different dialogues–one between a boy and a woman (possibly a prostitute), the other between whites and blacks.

Other songs gloss Latin dance music ("Changing Every Day"), Latin-inflected light funk ("Church of the Poison Mind," in which Terry growls like Patti LaBelle in a huff) and calypso-flavored pop-funk ("Stormkeeper," "Miss Me Blind"). In "Victims," a sprawling, churchy ballad, light symphonic orchestration replaces the silky, synthesized textures of the rest of the album. "Feel like a child on a dark night/Wishing there was some kind of heaven," Boy George muses. Both the vocals and the arrangement suggest that he is probing a deeper spiritual realm than the usual masochistic romantic delirium of dreams, love and emotions–words that course obsessively through the songs.

The rollicking calypso "Mister Man" politicizes the dark night of the soul that Boy George begins to approach in "Victims." The unpredictable, potentially murderous "man" of the title is a generalized enough symbol of fear and desire to be taken as a white oppressor, a street hustler or any macho bully. But while Culture Club's "we are all races, all sexes, all musics" pose is honorable, it's ultimately quite shallow. Smatterings of soul, calypso and funk in synth-pop packaging do not add up to a very significant musical cross-fertilization. Happily, Colour by Numbers makes less of this pose than did Kissing to Be Clever.

When Culture Club first appeared on these shores last year, it was difficult to imagine that Boy George would quickly become a bona-fide pop star and fashion plate with a legion of female admirers. With his lipstick, dreadlocks and hieroglyphic shmattes, he looked like an overweight, teenage sissy desperately trying to grab people's attention. And when he pleaded, "Do you really want to hurt me?" one could imagine that plenty of guys would be sufficiently provoked by his coy androgyny to do exactly that. For unlike David Bowie in his transvestite period, Boy George was no icy alien parading at a safe emotional distance. Instead of concealing his "girlish" feelings, he flaunted them, putting his heart on the line along with his fantasies.

But with all its dripping sweetness, Boy George's singing also contains a rich undercurrent of humor. While his sob is genuine, he is also wise enough to recognize the silliness of such teenage languishing. And it's that sense of humor–Boy George's knowingly excessive romanticism, his graceful acceptance of his own klutziness, his irrepressible pleasure at the foolishness and fun of pop – that redeems Culture Club from any pretentiousness.

Whether you like the band or not, Culture Club is one pop group that matters. (RS 407)

STEPHEN HOLDEN