Lovergirl Up Close : CHECK LIST****<i> Great Balls of Fire</i> ***<i> Good Vibrations</i> **<i> Maybe Baby</i> *<i> Running on Empty </i>

***TEENA MARIE. “Naked to the World.” Epic. “Trapped in the body of a white girl” was a joke phrase for novelty singer Julie Brown, but for Teena Marie it’s a real dilemma that she’s been grappling with since her 1979 debut album, “Wild and Peaceful.” Using more inner-city slang than you’d find in an Iceberg Slim novel, Marie takes a blue-eyed soul-sister approach that can be off-putting to some, endearing to others.

This album is standard Marie: up-close and personal, with ideas that run all over the map. The title of the album is apt, in that Marie’s songs always bypass commercial blandness in favor of passionate, often overwritten insights into her own unique perspective of the world.

None of these tracks is likely to carry the California-born singer/producer to the larger pop audience that 1984’s “Lovergirl,” her biggest hit single to date, seemed to point her toward.

On the rap-injected “Call Me (I Got Yo Number)” funkmeister Rick James tells her “I know you like the streets I grew up on.” On an epic ballad, “The Once and Future Dream,” the two of them get torrid and sing their heads off. Marie solidifies her soul credentials on “Ooo La La La” and “Work It,” and comes dangerously close to pretentiousness on “Trick Bag” and “Crocodile Tears.”

Even when her efforts don’t pay off, there is a strong sense of self that distinguishes Marie’s records. She has a sound that will always find a receptive audience; that it’s not as big as she deserves is a situation that this album, despite its strengths, may not rectify.