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	SEAL Naked pop

Britain’s Seal, touring in support of his new Seal IV (Warner Bros.), brought his purist’s version of pop-musical performance to Avalon last Thursday night. A fairly full house (less crowded than for house-music Fridays but officially a "sold out" show) of young-to-middle-age adults greeted him. Seal offered no laser beams, no stagy clothing or video-camera screens, no dance routines or pyrotechnics. He came on stage wearing black pants and a sleeveless black jersey, a microphone in his hand or, occasionally, an acoustic guitar on which he played rhythmic runs and country-ish chords reminiscent of Neil Young. And he sang in a gravelly, often husky voice that could recall, in its depth and tonalities, a classic Ray Charles. At other times, his vocals revisited the Righteous Brothers and his music the music of Jim Morrison, the Pet Shop Boys, even M People — all of it played without any embellishment and sung lovingly, without the slightest irony or distraction. It was a musical renovation of a ’60s and ’70s America that America itself, with its embrace of hip-hop and child-prostitute pop, has rejected but that still commands the loyalty of European fans like Seal’s home audience.

Seal appeared at FleetBoston Pavilion in the mid ’90s, when his hit singles "Crazy" and "Kiss from a Rose" out-muscled the then fashionable neo-soul of Terence Trent D’Arby. He performed both songs again at Avalon, but though "Crazy" still boasts the anthemic intensity that forged the first bond of affection between him and his fans, his new material (as well as "Killer," a pre-"Crazy" 1990 song from his years as a presence in the British house-music scene) expressed his affirmations of love much more deeply. The Seal of today has resurrected a variety of ’60s soul, folk, and disco that he incorporates into house-music rhythms, Europop atmospherics, or both. His music makes up in breadth and sturdiness for what it eschews in visuals.

At Avalon, the crowd raised their hands for the pumping "My Vision," the sublime melodics of "Love’s Divine," and the intimacy of "Don’t Cry"; they danced to "Get It Together" and "Heavenly"; and they raised their hands and danced to the gothic atmospherics and deep-house beat of "Killer." This song especially recalled the art-rock orchestrations, gothic electronics, and otherworldly obsessions that dominate the music of France’s Mylene Farmer, with whom Seal, in 1999, sang the duet "Les mots" that resurrected his career. He did not include "Les mots" in his Avalon set. Jim Morrison, who lies buried in Paris’s Père Lachaise cemetery and whose gloomy rebelliousness continues to dominate much of French pop, would not have approved.