E-Mail This Article to a Friend Good vibrations Michael Franti and Spearhead put melody behind their message BY TED DROZDOWSKI

Beautiful, blissed-out music that anyone can dig doesn’t come along too often. And nobody would expect an album full of it from Michael Franti and Spearhead, a band better known for their political lyrics than for generous melodies, catchy choruses, or irresistible rhythms. Yet their new Everyone Deserves Music (iMusic) is an unstoppable river of funky rhythms, dizzy sonic tics, and great, great tunes.

Right from the jangling chords and tinkling piano that open "What I Be," which is just aching for radio play, it’s obvious that Franti and his musicians have made a creative leap. As the song unfolds, it also becomes clear that they haven’t sacrificed their modernity or their social consciousness. "If I could be the sun/I’d radiate like Africa/Smile upon the world/Intergalactic love, laughter/If I wore the rings, I’d wash away the whole world’s pain/Bring the gift of cool like ice cream trucks on sunny days," Franti sings in a half-spoken rasp that radiates positive energy. This delightful sentiment just runs deeper as the song unfolds, spreading a message to "love someone" as it straddles the worlds of hip-hop and old-school Philly soul.

And the disc doesn’t let up. "We Don’t Stop" critiques the wars around us, from the war on drugs to the war on the Muslim world, but stays deliciously upbeat thanks to the propulsive clap of its beat and the interjections of JB’s-style rhythm guitar, discofied background vocal arrangements, and other tasty surprises. The title track, "Never Too Late," "Bomb the World," "Pray for Grace" — really, everything on the CD — all use strings, piano, funky grooves, skewed samples, Franti’s new-found voice as a singer rather than a rapper, and an array of other sonic fillips to coat messages of brotherhood in candy sweetened to perfection. Yet his lyrics never feel compromised by the good vibes.

It’s not that the evolution doesn’t make sense. Franti has been recasting himself since his strident industrial rap days in the Beatnigs, his first band. His group between the Beatnigs and Spearhead, the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, focused his lyric skills. And with Spearhead, he’s explored the signatures of classic R&B. Earlier this year, he released the solo acoustic Songs from the Front Porch (Boo Boo Wax), which revealed new depths in his songwriting and melodic approach.

But even he feels that Everyone Deserves Music is a breakthrough. "I spent a long time working on crafting these songs as three-minute pop songs," he says over the phone from Perth, where he’s on tour. "I wrote ‘Bomb the World’ right after September 11, 2001 — that was the first song. As I developed more numbers, I got together with Bill Bottrell, who’s worked with all kinds of people from Sheryl Crow to Michael Jackson. We worked together on structure and melody. The band went out and played these songs on the road, and we’d get different ideas of how they could be played, so we recorded many different versions of them — six of ‘Bomb the World,’ for example — until we got exactly what we wanted."

Franti explains that "part of Spearhead’s journey has been to grow as musicians." To that end, the group have polished their harmonies and grooves. And Franti has spent much of his spare time in the past two years working on his guitar playing, developing songs that could just as well be performed alone as with Spearhead. He’s also used his six-string to train his voice, building vocal melodies around strummed chords. "In my first group, the Beatnigs, none of us knew anything about music except the drummer, so we’d just beat on pieces of metal and things to generate rhythm. Really learning how to develop melodies and a tune to go with my lyrics is new for me."

At the same time, Franti remains committed to making socio-political statements through his music. "Ultimately, I want to be of service to my community and my family and to the planet. All of these songs come from that commitment. Music can’t change the world overnight, but I feel that it can help us make it through a difficult night. And I know music can change people, and that people can then change the world."