“Welcome to the greatest show on earth,” R. Kelly croons on his new album. “Welcome to my bedroom, baby.”

Coming from a man whose bedroom is under legal scrutiny, this line is neither funny nor sleazy — it’s unsettling. Yet some might argue that such judgments are unfair. Maybe we ought to separate Kelly the man (battling multiple counts of child pornography charges, to say nothing of the merciless urination-themed parodies on Chappelle’s Show) from Kelly the music man, one of the industry’s most inspired producers, a singer whose smoother-than-silk voice rivals that of Marvin Gaye or Stevie Wonder.

Kelly’s albums, though, tempt listeners to treat him as a district attorney might. Increasingly, his music isn’t just self-referential but self-obsessed in an unabashedly exaggerated fashion.

It’s tough to detach artist from art when song titles alone suggest a psychiatric diagnosis: acute narcissism (“The World’s Greatest,” his contribution to the film Ali) accompanied by delusions of grandeur (1996’s positivity anthem “I Believe I Can Fly”). Kelly has a passion for extremes: Songs are either sacred or profane, by which we mean really sacred (Jesus-praising, church choir-laden) or really profane (“Feelin’ On Yo Booty” is not about the Lord). And he ladles himself in excess: He’ll serve up not just a remix, but a re-remix, not “Sex Me,” but “Sex Me, Parts I & II.”

And now, not just an album, a double album. Happy People/U Saved Me is — à la OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below and Nelly’s Sweat and Suit — a display of versatility. It also severs Kelly’s personas: The first CD is exclusively dedicated to classy dance instructionals; the second, gospel-themed inspirational tunes. While countless R&B artists, from Ray Charles to Gaye to Prince, have flip-flopped between flesh and spirit, only Kelly has followed the flesh into so much personal and public trouble. He’s like St. Augustine reborn as an R&B singer, staging heartfelt musical tugs-of-war between body and soul.

Here, that struggle is the most chaste it’s ever been. With his trial nearing, Kelly’s foregone bumps ’n’ grinds for parent-friendly jams; Happy People is his most buttoned-up take on body movin’ yet.

The disc is infatuated with steppin’, a Chicagoan dance routine resembling a slow-mo jitterbug. Kelly celebrated the trend on his 2003 Chocolate Factory single “Step In the Name of Love”; he celebrates it again on this set’s first single, “Happy People,” which has a catchy groove but sounds almost exactly like “Step.” According to Kelly, “Steppin’ is therapy, healing both you and me.” So, throughout the disc, he has us steppin’ in the name of love, steppin’ into heaven, steppin’ our way to happiness and, hey, maybe even world peace.

He’s also steppin’ into monotony. With nearly every track built on 8-count beats, Happy is little more than an extended dance lesson. Add lyrics awash in generic self-help (“Somebody touch somebody/ Tell somebody you love somebody”) and only standout tracks like “If I Could Make the World Dance,” with its vocal layers sweetly bouncing off one another, step out from the pack.

Disc two, U Saved Me, is similarly single-minded, with prayer as the theme and salvation as the goal. Jesus, a popular homeboy whom rappers like Kanye West and Mase have publicly befriended, is omnipresent. So is the stuff of American Idol singles: lyrics about peaks, valleys and soaring eagles.

As a genre that knows no understatement, gospel can be ideal for Kelly. On “The Diary of Me” his voice ascends over deep bass lines, blissfully evoking the pared-down Stevie Wonder tune “You and I.” But most tracks — featuring stream-of-consciousness verses and terse, repetitive choruses (“U saved me! U saved me!”) — don’t reach those heights. Kelly devolves into ultra-dramatic schmaltz that borders on Broadway showtunes. What other genre but gospel could accommodate the heavy-handed dialogue of “3-Way Phone Call,” a duet with R&B singer Kelly Price: “‘Sister, do you really believe that I can rise again?’/‘Yes, Rob, and not only that, God will forgive you for your sins’”?

Tension between his twin personas —“Kells,” the wide-collared, golden-tongued pied piper of Happy People, and U Saved Me’s “Robert,” who longs only for the Lord — has doubtless been heightened by Kelly’s dramatic travails. Whether this set is driven by a guilty conscience or a persecution complex, this much is certain: These records are too dramatic, too personal and, well, too much. Kelly would do better to tone things down a notch or two — and save some theatrics for the judge.

DOWNLOAD THESE “The Diary of Me,” “If I Could Make the World Dance,” “Peace”