Michael Bolton is getting more and more adventurous with his career these days.

After enduring the release of a greatest hits collection in 1995 and then a Christmas album the following year, Bolton the masochist taunts the critics and asks for it once again with the release of not one, but TWO albums within a span of weeks.

All That Matters, released in November last year, is the usual schmaltz: Bolton gathers relatively benign and radio-friendly pop melodies, and wails (or if your prefer, Star Searches) them to a point where they're almost not musical, at the same time smothering them with thick layers of synthesizers, strings, and other tools of lushness that the singer has mistaken for creativity.

Compared to his previous albums, "All That Matters" is Bolton's most restrained. Not that he doesn't emote. He still scrapes the back of his throat and diaphragm for the every-bit-of-my-soul delivery for which he's both loved and loathed. But this time around, Bolton learns how to hold it in before exploding. He displays this perfectly on "A Heart Can Only Be So Strong," the kind of sweeping lost-love paean that only Bolton could sing.

The singer also jumps on the current musical bandwagon by collaborating with one hit wonder Tony Rich and wonder hitmaker Babyface, who makes Bolton sing his by-the-numbers formula tried and perfected on other artists such as Toni Braxton, TLC and even Whitney Houston. The majorly sappy "The Best of Love" and desperately-trying "Why Me" are the result of these collaborations. Thank God Puff Daddy was busy working with Mariah Carey at the time this album was made.

And don't think you had escaped Diane Warren on this one. The Mariah Carey of songwriters seems to be a permanent fixture on Michael Bolton albums. Here she dips her hand into the stew with "A Heart Can Only Be So Strong" and "Pleasure or Pain", which she co-wrote with Bolton and Rich.

Phase Two of Bolton's current self-torture is My Secret Passion (The Arias), a direct result of his frequent hanging out with Luciano Pavarotti.

On this album (released January 1998), he delightfully anticipates the critical whips by throwing all caution to the wind and jumping into wailing waters head-first. He attacks and mutilates such famous operatic pieces as Nessun Dorma (from Puccini's Turandot) and Che Gelida Manina (from Puccini's La bohème) with his overdone vocal fervor.

And then there's the hair. The permed-out locks have been shed for a George Clooney-inspired 'do, which he might have gotten away with if he actually had hair. But we are leaving it to the fashion magazines to argue about that.

Grades: "All That Matters": C-, "My Secret Passion": D-