ALBUM REVIEW : **** : RANDY NEWMAN : “Faust” <i> Warner Bros</i> .

A superb pop craftsman and wickedly funny satirist, Newman has been warming up for the challenge of writing a musical based on the Faust legend for years, tackling along the way such themes as racism, political correctness and everyday human foibles. His earthly subjects have ranged from short people to fat boys, bigots to warmongers, polluted rivers to, of course, battered old Los Angeles. “Century Boulevard--we love it. “

In telling us about God’s struggle with the Devil for control of a mortal’s soul, Newman presents a supreme being so human in “How Great Our Lord” that he teases his subjects out of pure boredom. At one point, James Taylor (as the Lord) suggests that even he doesn’t really know the answers to many of the mysteries of life. When an astonished angel, seeking reassurance, asks the Lord if he really doesn’t know the answers, Taylor declares, “Of course I do”--and skips off laughing.

In the role of the Devil, Newman makes his character shrewd enough (he thinks) to sucker the Lord into a bet that could lead to the Devil’s entry back into heaven but also hapless enough to get blindsided by a pretty woman’s wink. The cast also includes Don Henley (as the coldhearted Faust), Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt and Elton John.

Rather than expand the musical-theater form, “Faust” mainly applies the familiar Newman touch to some of the highs and lows of that form. From the bluster of “Northern Boy” to the feel-good “Happy Ending,” he seems as eager at times to have fun with theater tradition as to tell the Faust tale. Newman does, however, find room in the course of 17 songs for solid contemporary strains (the lovely ballads “Feels Like Home” and “Sandman’s Coming”).

How it will work onstage (where the production, crucially, won’t have Newman’s wonderfully sarcastic vocals) is yet to be seen, but the album itself is deliciously entertaining.