* * * * <i> Great Balls of Fire</i> * * * <i> Good Vibrations</i> * * <i> Maybe Baby</i> * <i> Running on Empty : </i> : CUTTING CROON

* * “BROADCAST.” Cutting Crew. Virgin. “It moost have been something you said . . .,” croons Nick Van Eede, and not since Paul McCartney arched his eyebrows and rolled his baby browns has English choirboy innocence set the cash registers ringing the way “(I Just) Died in Your Arms” has on its way to the top of the charts.

That slice of melancholy romanticism is a good example of “Broadcast’s” classically proportioned, display-case pop, but it doesn’t tip off the range of territory covered by this rookie Anglo-Canadian quartet: Beatles bounce, 10cc Beatles revisionism, taut Motown string stabs, Supertramp art-rock, Boston pomp-rock, Pink Floyd rock atmospherics, Spector grandeur--if it’s out there, these guys will suck it up.

Sounds derivative? Right. Facile? Right again. It doesn’t help that Cutting Crew is starting out with trite romantic sentiments and self-help philosophy, which it inflates to a grand scale with its synthetic soaring. There’s no reason to deny yourself “Broadcast’s” superficial pleasures, but don’t expect something this antiseptic and humorless to get the blood boiling.