** JON SECADA, “Heart, Soul & a Voice”; <i> ERG/SBK</i>

Miami-based, Cuban-born Secada, who won a Grammy award for best Latin pop album of 1992, moves into a new and not always comfortable arena this time out: dance music. His guiding lights for these repetitious tunes are Earth, Wind & Fire, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. But Secada is almost totally reliant upon clunky, rhythm machine-sounding tracks to generate any real sense of propulsion.

Beyond the overproduced, Top 40 sound of the tracks, Secada’s undeniably appealing singing sounds just fine. With one of the most flexible voices in pop, he soars across the octaves with almost uncanny ease. On tunes such as “Mental Picture,” “Where Do I Go From You” and “Don’t Be Silly,” he demonstrates the warm, affecting style that was so convincing on his 1992 debut album, “Just Another Day.”

More typically, like on “If You Go,” he’s saddled with a pounding rhythm track that forces him into a shouting competition with an oppressively heavy backup vocal ensemble. Secada has the talent to become a big-time crossover act but on this he doesn’t get much opportunity to show it.

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).