Intense choreography and edgy visuals redefine "X Burlesque" for the Flamingo Las Vegas. From left, top: Melania De Los Santos, Meeka Onstead, Shakeera Onstead and Britteny Palmer. Bottom: Brenda Reese, Olga Skrypnikova and Yelena Legare.

What's the price of being cool?

Some of us can only guess. But from sideline observation, we could argue it comes at the expense of having fun.

Somewhere in the transition from "X" to its current incarnation as "X Burlesque," the Flamingo's topless show became a little like some of the beautiful people you see in a trendy nightclub: perfect hair, perfect style, and looking a little lost or bored.

"X Burlesque" recently moved into the smaller showroom at the Flamingo Las Vegas, five months after closing at the Desert Passage mall. It has relaunched not only as a fully topless affair (pasties were required at the mall), but with an edgier tone driven by high-energy dancing, artsy video projections and in-your-face music such as the profane Buckcherry rocker, "Crazy Bitch."

The fevered choreography separates the eight skilled dancers from the average stripper-pole stars at your neighborhood gentleman's club. But it also comes at the expense of the winking tone and a few outright laughs found in the old "X."

The humor -- beyond featured comedian Pudgy -- has been reduced to an audience-participation "stewardess" number and the title cards introducing solos (a practice directly lifted from the rival "Crazy Horse Paris"): Robin the Cradle, Pharoah Fawcet and the like.

The humor doesn't count a game attempt by Yulia Koriaguina to lip-sync a song from "The Producers." Co-producer Angela Stabile spent years performing in "Crazy Girls," and the out-of-place bit relapses on her vow to retire that kind of stuff.

"X" does have energy and audacity on its side. Fellas, we're talkin' three girls on a futon! The 200-seat venue creates a cozy club environment, complete with a stripper pole in the audience. Anyone who has seen the Second City comedy troupe will need a little time to adjust to topless dancers in fetish wear popping out of the universal set built for sketch comedy. The deliberately bland walls are now useful for video projections ranging from scratchy graffiti to the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine."

The "Burlesque" in the title apparently refers to Pudgy, a matronly insult comedian hearkening back to Don Rickles and Totie Fields. She isn't what the younger crowd signed up for. "I'm here as your cold shower for the night," she proclaims. Probably true beyond words.

But Pudgy always wins the crowd over. The act is always the same -- two audience-participation songs as a backboard for improvised crowd banter -- and it never fails to energize any show she's in.

The whole thing is over in little more than an hour -- making you hope the ticket pricing will be discounted through promotions -- and the next day you're likely to remember only one specific: the clever bathtub number, in which Brenda Reese and Britteny Palmer still-pose and then move under the cover of stage blackouts, creating live "animation" with genuinely sexy results.

Of course, what's erotic to each individual is a highly personal call. That's why we have zillions of porno movies when one or two would cover the basics. And it's why we have five topless cabaret shows in town, with another on the way.

I'd put "X Burlesque" third on a list offered here as a customer guide, one my wife hopes her friends will be too busy to read:

1. "Fantasy" -- The Luxor revue has the most across-the-board appeal, with interesting choreography by Cris Judd balanced by live singing.

2. "Crazy Horse Paris" -- I need to catch up to whatever changes come with the renamed "La Femme." But for years, the MGM Grand revue has been a pricey but stylized confection, perhaps too sophisticated and demurely erotic for its own good.

3. "X Burlesque" -- Dance aficionados and rockers will form an unlikely alliance. But is it too hip to be a turn-on?

4. "Crazy Girls" -- This perennial is pushing 20 years in an agreeably seedy showroom at the Riviera. While not as accomplished as "X Burlesque," it is more simple and direct, particularly for fanny-packers who may be seeing their first nudie show.

5. "Bite" -- Female vampires and Styx songs at the Stratosphere are funny, but not erotic.

As a postscript, I should point out that "Fashionistas," now at the Empire Ballroom, isn't topless and is too ambitious to be lumped in with the cabaret revues. But it's also more interesting and in many ways sexier than all of them.