WONDER TAKES THE EASY PATH

“IN SQUARE CIRCLE.” Stevie Wonder. Motown.

As pop albums go this is a good one. With all these well-crafted pop tunes--there’s about four potential Top 10 singles here--this album, which Wonder wrote, produced and arranged, should sell millions.

Featuring mostly fast and medium-tempo songs with basic romantic themes, the LP is filled with likeable but, for the most part, rather tame stuff.

For any other artist this would be a triumph. But this is Stevie Wonder. We expect more from “The Genius” than passable pop. This is the man who gave us “Signed, Sealed and Delivered,” “Superstition,” “I Wish” and a few dozen more gems. A great Stevie Wonder song is intense and riveting. You don’t sit back and admire his craftsmanship on his finest tunes because you’re too absorbed in the song. On the new songs, you admire the craftsmanship.

The closest he comes to excellence is “It’s Wrong (Apartheid),” a scathing attack on South African segregation couched in bouncy African rhythms. It’s a simple, powerful anthem with a cogent message. While this could be a hit single, it certainly doesn’t measure up to his best.

The other notable song is “Part-Time Lover”--the first single from the album. It’s destined for the Top 10, probably No. 1. This is textbook facile pop, the kind of song that creeps into your consciousness. Whether you like it or not, you’ll find yourself absent-mindedly humming it after hearing it a few times.

Wonder seems to have settled into a pop groove. “I Just Called to Say I Love You,” his big, award-winning single from last year’s “The Woman in Red” sound track, was a bad sign. It’s a sappy pop tune that’s much like a camp sing-along. Again, it’s not awful, but not up to his standards. This album, reportedly the beginning of a trilogy, doesn’t seem particularly ambitious. Whatever Wonder’s intent, it’s just another example of Wonder’s current focus on basic pop.

This is a guy who should be blazing new trails. It’s not something he can do every time, of course, but this is his first complete album since “Hotter Than July” in 1980. After five years, there should be at least one ground-breaker in this collection or at least something that simply bowls us over.

Few artists have talent matching Wonder’s. Those with such capabilities must be measured by different standards. By those lofty Wonder standards, “In Square Circle” falls short.