ACROSS THE GENDERS, THERE'S SENSITIVE-GUY POP TOO

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

After the premature deaths of Kurt Cobain, Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, pop music seemed to take a step back. Hey, it's only rock 'n' roll--Does everyone have to be so uptight, so self-destructive?

Enter the sensitive-guy rocker. Sure, Cobain, Shakur and Smalls were sensitive in their own way--Shakur even recorded a tribute to his mom--but their vulnerability was often drowned in guitar feedback or thumping beats. Many of today's top male performers, like neo-soul crooner Maxwell, Christian-pop singer Bob Carlisle, soft-focus R.-and-B. singer Babyface and PG-13 rated rapper-actor Will Smith, go further; the aggression, the sharp edges, the dangerous sexuality are all gone, leaving almost pure pop yin.

The reigning prince of sensitive-guy pop may be Jakob Dylan, lead singer for the folk-rock band the Wallflowers. The band's latest CD, Bringing Down the Horse, has sold 3 million copies and is still going strong. The album is actually a weary affair, but it has taken radio by storm with its Top 40 guitar hooks and introspective lyrics, and with Dylan's shadowy, intimate vocals. Does Dylan consider himself sensitive? "I think people like myself feel the same thing everyone else feels," he says. "But sometimes [people] focus on one aspect of their feelings, like anger and being repressed. I have a lot more to my personality."

Jakob's dad is the great Bob Dylan. Having been asked about his famous father about as many times as Blowin' in the Wind has been heard at protest marches, the younger Dylan plays down the elder's influence. Says Jakob: "I know that material, and I learned as much [from it] as other songwriters probably did."

The famous name didn't help sell records, at least not at first. The Wallflowers' debut on Virgin Records was a bust, and the group and its front man were written off as a genetic curiosity. But then Interscope, the hottest label going, signed the band, and its fortunes turned around. "There were a lot of people coming around and looking at me as Bob's son. They were, like, going to a circus to peek," says Dylan. "They stopped coming. They all disappeared." Not quite. Now the crowds are coming to hear him.

--By C.J.F. Reported by Patrick E. Cole/Los Angeles

With reporting by Patrick E. Cole/Los Angeles