**1/2 RICKY MARTIN

(C2)

Don't think of Ricky Martin as a Puerto Rican Backstreet Boy or as the sole alumnus of Menudo to whom puberty has been kind. Think of him, as Sony apparently does, as the next Mariah Carey. On his English-language debut, Sony's certainly given him the Carey treatment, figuring that there's nothing in his ethnic style that can't be made more palatable to the widest possible audience by handing him over to a dozen producers, arranging the music to within an inch of its life, and giving him material composed by power-ballad überhacks Desmond Child and Diane Warren. He even gets a duet/duel with another diva, Madonna, each striving wittily to underplay the other on the CD's most original track, "Be Careful (cuidado con mi corazón)." The result is akin to trying to introduce Anglo America to empanadas and yuca by having McDonald's cook them. Latin flavor has been all but bleached out of even the liveliest numbers (the Austin Powers-y "Livin' La Vida Loca," a "Spanglish" version of his Grammy knockout "The Cup of Life"). Still, there's no denying Martin's enthusiasm (compensating, perhaps, for his surprisingly thin voice), which, along with countless hooks crafted by the veteran ears of his many handlers, really sells these tunes (and "sells" is the right word here). This will be the pop album of the summer of 1999, if not the whole year. Resistance is futile.

-- Gary Susman