Poor Thomas Dolby. first his synth-pop dabblings (most obviously "She Blinded Me with Science") get him tagged as a techno-weenie, then he finds some of his most propulsive workouts stuck in the horrid film Howard the Duck. On Aliens Ate My Buick, Dolby mostly escapes the techno-dweeb label, but his genuine feel for funk is sabotaged by a dilettantish attitude that leaves the funk numbers soft and the more expansive experiments indecisive.

Dolby shares a problem with most British funk singers: his clipped voice sounds inappropriate to the raucous beats at work in the songs. George Clinton's lascivious "Hot Sauce" has an agreeable angular groove, but Dolby's polite delivery fits in like Roger Waters on a Funkadelic jam. The frankly subversive "Airhead" is a dance-floor natural, but its offensiveness is not compensated by the last line of the song (the aphorism: men force some women to be airheads).

When Dolby strays from solid R&B, he sounds confused about what to do with the different structures. For example, "The Key to Her Ferrari," Robin Leach cameo aside, sounds like a hip Manhattan Transfer parody. Dolby wants to establish himself as a master of funk with broad tastes; in the end, he sounds more like an over-cerebral hobbyist with some new toys. (RS 529)

JIMMY GUTERMAN