By the end of 1990, Deee-Lite had not only conquered the dance floor, it had moved on to rule the international runway. At the fashion collections, the neo-disco single "Groove Is in the Heart," from the group's debut, World Clique, was more popular than Karl Lagerfeld's resuscitation of the House of Chanel. The album went gold; the group got more press than natural disasters; and vocalist Lady Kier Kirby became something of a fixture, turning up at as many fashionable occasions as Ivana. Deee-Lite, with its multicultural quasi-Seventies sound and image, became a novelty in the mainstream. Two years later, platform shoes are practically conventional, and Deee-Lite's notoriety threatens to eclipse its creativity.

World Clique, immediately kitsch but somehow timeless, was "funk, soul, curly, wiggly music," as Kier has called it. The second album, Infinity Within, sounds similar to the first but doesn't curl or wiggle; it has an agenda – covering issues from voter registration to the depletion of the ozone. "Vote, Baby, Vote" is a kind of thumping, breathy, thirty-second public-service announcement that makes casting a ballot seem almost sexy. But "I Had a Dream I Was Falling Through a Hole in the Ozone Layer" edges close to frivolity. Sure, the lyrics are sometimes clever ("convenience is the enemy"), but the precisely synthesized music makes them trivial (if not hypocritical, coming just a few tracks after "We'd like to conduct a fax orgy," from "I.F.O."). On "Rubber Lover," though, with a groovy organ, little beeps and whoops and the refrain "Just have a good time, just have a good time," Deee-Lite turns prophylactics into an integral part of the fun. "Take your time when you do the natural thing ... put your head before your ding-a-ling," sings Kier. The male comeback: "Skin tight, baby." (RS 634/635)

CHRISTIAN WRIGHT