Flesh and Bone (1997)

He may be no threat to James Brown, but Richard Marx does make an occasionally convincing soul man on his fifth album, Flesh and Bone. ''Touch of Heaven'' slow-burns as sexily as any bump-and-grinder from one of R&B's reigning Romeos. But the '80s relic can't help lapsing into that decade's cheesy hallmarks: MOR arrangements, clenched-teeth vocals, and cliches like, well, ''flesh and bone.'' B-