POP STARS ***** Great Balls of Fire **** Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door *** Good Vibrations ** Maybe Baby * Ain’t That a Shame

REBA McENTIRE “Sweet Sixteen.” MCA **

The title comes from the simple fact that this is McEntire’s 16th album, but it also represents a loose thread of a youth’s-eye view on love that runs through many of the songs. She retreats to the idyllic ‘50s world of teen romance in an incomprehensible remake of the Everly Brothers “Cathy’s Clown” (never a great lyric and certainly not one that makes sense sung by a woman). The album’s troubles are compounded by some lyrics that would be thrown out of Songwriting 101 (“sometimes wonderful can fall apart sometimes”). Still, when she hits her Patsy Cline-influenced stride, as she does in the saucy “Say the Word,” and the swooping, swinging “ ‘Til Love Comes Again,”) McEntire shows how she nabbed all those female-vocalist-of-the-year awards. She just shouldn’t be wasting that terrific grown-up voice on these silly love songs.