Humor in music is kind of equivalent to breast size in choosing a girlfriend. It can be enticing, particularly when your judgment is impaired, but it's not enough to base a long-term relationship on. Sean Tillmann, (aka Har Mar Superstar), can normally be found releasing cynically emotive music as Sean Na Na. Here, he adopts another silly alias (supposedly belonging to his younger brother, "Harold Martin") in order to release an album of R&B; songs with titles like, "Girl, You're Stupid."

Har Mar comes off as the unholy offspring of New Edition's Ricky Bell, one of the less attractive members of 98 Degrees, and MC Paul Barman. Amazingly, it's not as unpalatable as it sounds. There's certainly plenty to poke fun at the "urban" genre, although the number of practitioners doing an adequate job of inadvertent self-parody makes this album somewhat gratuitous. One of the great overlooked R&B; 12-inches of the past couple of years, TQ's "Fuck Your Sister," comes to mind. Its smooth love-jam stylings seemed innocuous enough until the chorus, when it became clear that TQ was actually soliciting his girlfriend to hook him up with her sister. Funnier still was the fact that the record included an instrumental version of the song. With competition like that out there, Har Mar is a bold project for Tillmann to undertake.

The first track, "Baby, Do You Like My Clothes?" is an uncanny emulation of Color Me Badd, only in this case the sexing-up is on hold until baby improves her dated wardrobe. "Hypercolor tells me where my baby is hot," Har Mar croons. "'Cause I can see her sweatpants getting dark in the crotch."

"I Admit" updates Berlin's late-'80s hit, "Take My Breath Away," with even cheesier keyboards and confessional boy/girl vocals, in which Har Mar and cohort Mandar come clean about brake tampering and secret vasectomies. "Brand New Day" is Har Mar at his poppiest, an enjoyable concoction of xylophone, wacky samples, and lots of Minnesota references.

Despite the assistance of a number of collaborators-- most notably the Busy Signals, whose danceable beats serve as a foundation for Har Mar to rhyme over-- this album comes off fun but insubstantial. It's fundamentally a novelty record. In other words, you may want to take Har Mar Superstar home for a night or two, but there's not much chance you're going to be playing him for your parents a few months from now.

-Meg Zamula