1/2 EDIE BRICKELL & NEW BOHEMIANS “Ghost of a Dog” <i> Geffen</i>

This is an album to avoid if you have even one cynical bone in your body. Singer-songwriter Brickell, whose hit 1988 debut album established her as pop’s latest sensitive waif, is back with a new batch of songs. And guess what: She’s still sensitive. Whether the new album will be a hit or not is another matter.

Pop fans who are fed up the hard-boiled realism that dominates today’s “serious” artists probably think she’s a wonderful revelation--an album to give that friend who loves Rod McKuen poems. They’re probably so happy that someone finally filled the innocence void that they don’t notice that Brickell hasn’t got anything important to tell us.

Brickell and the Bohemians band do a reasonable job of recycling the soothing elements of ‘60s pop-folk, but her own views are so childlike and her images so often pointless that it’s hard to work up any feeling for them. Sample line from “Oak Cliff Bra”:

A lady with a baby / With only one shoe

Walks by / Where’s his other shoe?