POP MUSIC REVIEWS : OSBORNE OVERDOES WHAT HE DOES BEST

Jeffrey Osborne’s show at the Universal Amphitheatre on Thursday, while smooth enough, provided a prime example of a star in danger of underestimating his audience--in this case, underestimating his fans’ tolerance for anything other than ballads or the most watered-down uptempo pop.

Osborne’s ballads are nearly all in the Alan and Marilyn Bergman tradition of soaring, optimistic closing themes, the kind that used to accompany movie montages of lovers strolling through parks. You almost expect to see credits start rolling when Osborne launches into another lulling celebration of romance as a tonic for life’s ills.

It helps that Osborne endows all that sweetness and mildly sensual light with the commanding authority of his full, deep voice. But even such a confident vocal range--and his relatively unpretentious manner on stage--can’t make up for the paucity of strong, varied material. Knowing that the ballads are his stock in trade, he seems to apply some of the same formulas to his more uptempo material--leaving even “Soweto,” his anti-apartheid anthem, slick and limp.

All the songs have been arranged with synthesizers and bass at the forefront--which works fair enough on the ballads but tends to wash the soulfulness out of anything with a bit more bite. (Though his band included two guitarists, rarely was either one audible.) Such is the way of most of the acts crossing over between the pop and black music charts now.

Could Osborne be wrong about what his fans will accept? Probably. Judging from the enthusiasm that greeted the one selection that might be classified as hard funk (a number dating back to the singer’s days as a member of LTD), it seems likely that he could get away with a lot more funky stuff than he thinks, without risking the loss of the mainstream pop fans he’s picked up as a softie. Let’s reverse the credits and turn this movie into an action -romance.

Osborne’s three-night stand at Universal wraps up tonight, followed by a show at the Pacific Amphitheatre on Sunday.