Ocean Cruise

***BILLY OCEAN. “Tear Down These Walls.” Arista. A former tailor on London’s trendy Saville Row, Ocean has a knack for coming up with songs--ranging from the smooth balladry of “Suddenly” to the boisterous danceability of “Caribbean Queen”--that fit him like a contemporary, well-tailored suit.

When you hear tunes like “There’ll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)” or “Love Zone” and figure that his forte is ultra-romantic torchers, he’ll turn around and deliver an impish, party-oriented “Loverboy” or “Nights (Feel Like Getting Down)” and dispel that notion. At the heart of Ocean’s pop craftiness is his versatility.

While his latest isn’t a uniformly strong album, it contains two tracks that rank with the best of Ocean’s material. One is the rock-the-house title cut, complete with manfully harmonized backing vocals that are African in flavor. It’s head and shoulders above the album’s songs that celebrate love’s durability in the face of outside pressures (“Because of You,” “The Colour of Love”) and the tunes that are pleasant but break no new ground (“Pleasure,” “Here’s To You”).

The other noteworthy cut is “Get Out of My Dreams (Get Into My Car),” a song so delightfully rambunctious that it rivals Aretha Franklin’s “Freeway of Love” and her pink Cadillac for rowdy, dance-floor appeal. While not a rule-breaking trend-setter in R&B;/pop, Ocean has still earned his reputation as a solid, reliable performer whose music is never less than entertaining.