OK, let’s just lay one thing on the table. Matisyahu is cool, in that impossibly uncool sort of way. First a FM 94.9-style novelty, he gained recognition with airplay of his concert album “Live at Stubbs,” back in the good ol’ days when just being a Hasidic Jewish reggae artist was enough to vault you into the spotlight. But before we get too carried away, let’s remember that he is from New York, which shouldn’t matter, but kinda does anyway.

Following his modest pop radio success attaining top-40 airplay comes his major label studio debut, Youth. Novelty, it turns out, only goes so far; on Youth, it wears off fast. The album can’t quite be called reggae — nearly half the album ditches the reggae beat entirely in favor of fluffy pop beats almost worthy of a mediocre Shaggy album. “What I’m Fighting For” sounds like a bad Tracy Chapman cover.

When Matisyahu does play “reggae,” he does it the way the Black Eyed Peas do “rap” — “King Without a Crown,” the album’s best track, seems tailor-made for pop radio (but it doesn’t match the energy of the live version).

The key obstacle that Matisyahu’s religion poses to his reggae success isn’t that he can’t touch a woman until marriage (he’s not a rapper, after all), but that his music lacks the cannabis-infused lethargy that makes even the most upbeat reggae relaxing. As such, all of his reggae tracks are plagued by an excessive spunk that doesn’t mesh with his nearly comical vocal style. The mushy guitar solos scattered throughout the album only make matters worse, temporarily turning his songs into castrated Sublime tributes.

Smoke a blunt, Matisyahu, and then we’ll talk.