CLEARASIL COUNTRY

OK, OK, so the faces we used in Record Rack last week to rate albums were stupid. While we launch a study to come up with a better symbol for rating the records, we’ll go with the old standby of 1 to 4 checks. Translation: = “Great Balls of Fire”

= “Good Vibrations” = “Maybe Baby” = “Running on Empty”

“OCEAN FRONT PROPERTY.” George Strait. MCA. The title tune jokingly refers to ocean-front property in Arizona, but if the Texas-born Great White Hope of country tradition keeps turning out albums that debut at No. 1 on the country chart, as this one recently did, he’ll be able to afford the real thing. With a voice as clear as his complexion and as clean as the starched white shirt that’s become his trademark, Strait delivers 10 new George Jones-like weepers and Haggard-esque Western swing tunes. Yet he often sounds as if the emotions expressed--from rejection and remorse to reawakened love and passion--have been studied rather than lived. His impeccable rhythm section, too, occasionally feels more metronomic than swinging. Only in that masterpiece of self-pity--”Am I Blue”--does Strait ever really bend and shape phrases with enough originality to indicate that one day he may become one of country’s great vocalists, rather than merely suggest them.