ROCK, NOW

His sensitive songs insinuate themselves, subtly but surely, into a listener's consciousness. Unpretentious he utilizes none of those carefully calculated, flashy gimmicks. He doesn't need to. His gentle reverence for reality, some sad awarenesses, his firm melodic lines dramatically underscored by insistent rock rhythms - it all adds up to the fresh, youthful, inventive and touchingly tender music that first struck responsive chords in his native Australia, where Rick Springfield's superlative sound shot him to the top of the charts. As guitarist with Zoot, the top-ranked rock group Down Under, he attained national prominence. Then he went his own way and arrived, solo, in America.

His first album, Beginnings, mirrored his introspective insights, particularly in nuanced narrative songs: in "What Would the Children Think," he explores mature material unrest with subtlety and sophistication; in "The Unhappy Ending," he chronicles misunderstanding and jealousy that lead ultimately to tragic violence; his song "Why" contains some complicated but simply stated psychological truths, resulting in a wistful regret that reality doesn't permit more romantic stability. "Why is it so hard/To be yourself?" could be his signature line. In this impressive first album, Springfield reveals a voice that is not one of those strident, insistent sounds that wear thin on repeated hearings. The Springfield sound has a winning sensitivity, a touching tenderness, a fresh and youthful lust for living, and living meaningfully. His second album, Comic Book Heroes, fulfills the promise. Revved up and resonating, the title song celebrates the supermen saviors, larger than life, because "Real people let me down." More than a put-down of human inadequacy, Springfield's lyric rather suggests human vulnerability. Incidentally, his preoccupation with comic book heroes is manifest, too, in his weekly network television series, the animated Mission Magic, in which he stars in animated form. He writes and performs the music for the series.

In Comic Book Heroes, he may extol superhuman derring-do, but his major concern is still with the tender side of very real life. "Weep No More" compassionately commiserates about premarital pregnancy; "The Photograph" narrates the movingly understated story of love never realized; "Why Are You Waiting" expresses paranoid insecurity induced by the universe's frantic, individual crunching pace. its lyrics describe "a frightened child with a nervous smile," facing reality with an indomitable optimism. It's a whole world view, probably Springfield's own, so convincing is the image in its immediacy and its sensitivity.

Rick Springfield incarnates one of today's rock ways, the introspective way. If Bowie and Jobriath whirl outward from the center of their selves, centripetally, spinning futuristically spaceward, Rick Springfield is confidently moving inward, centrifugally, toward the psychic centers where we live, always. He's where the heart is, winningly.