CROSSOVER QUEEN: At the rate we’re going,...

CROSSOVER QUEEN: At the rate we’re going, the “Soul Train Music Awards” might have to add a new category: best performance by a reformed teeny-bopper star from the U.K. Two of the hottest acts in black music this year fit the category: George Michael and Sheena Easton.

Michael, the former leader of the bubble gum duo Wham!, topped the black singles chart in June with the ballad “One More Try.” And now Easton, whose first U.S. hits were the frothy “Morning Train” and “Modern Girl,” is streaking up the Top 10 on the R&B; chart with “The Lover In Me.”

“It is definitely a major transformation, but it’s been an evolution,” Easton said last week. “It wasn’t a radical change from the straight-ahead pop of ‘Morning Train’ to the danceable pop of ‘Telefone’ (Easton’s 1983 hit), but it set me on the path to a kind of music that has a little bit more of an edge; a little more strength and attitude. And ‘Strut’ (in 1984) was a little bit further and ‘Sugar Walls’ (in 1985) was further still.”

One measure of the extent of Easton’s musical transformation: Her current hit is off to a much faster start on the black chart than it is on the pop chart, where it’s No. 41 (and climbing fast).

One of the keys to Easton’s credibility at black radio has been her associations with top writer/producers. Prince wrote and produced “Sugar Walls” and “U Got the Look,” a duet featuring Easton, which was a crossover smash a year ago. And L.A. Reid and Babyface--whose numerous pop/R&B; hits include Pebbles’ “Girlfriend” and Bobby Brown’s “Don’t Be Cruel”--produced “The Lover in Me.”

(The current hit is getting additional exposure in Easton’s nationally televised health spa commercials. Health & Tennis, which operates health clubs in 80% of the country, intercuts scenes from Easton’s “The Lover in Me” video with shots of the singer working out.)

“This album is very much the essence of what I’ve been trying to do as an artist--funky, danceable pop,” said Easton, 29. “If you listen to the radio now, there’s a lot of stuff out there that is basically good old dance pop with funk overtones. That’s where I’m most comfortable.”

The Scottish singer said she wouldn’t record a bouncy pop song like “Morning Train” now. “It probably wouldn’t be written now,” she added. “When ‘Morning Train’ was around, there weren’t songs like ‘The Lover in Me.’ It was either straight-ahead, bouncy pop that nobody danced to or out-and-out heavy funk. There wasn’t that merging in the middle--that crossover dance/pop/funk stuff that has come along in the past few years.”

Easton added that she hasn’t been concerned about alienating her early fans by her embrace of sassy R&B; and dance music. “Their tastes have changed over the years, too,” she said.