Aimee Mann steps into the ring

Her meticulously constructed pop songs work even out of context with the story, since it’s the sort of emotional terrain she’s used to navigating. “She Really Wants You” can resonate with anyone overwhelmed by a love they felt they didn’t deserve; “I Can’t Help You Anymore” with any person disgusted by a doomed relationship.

Working with producer Joe Henry, Mann also made her most up-tempo rock record ever.

“I wanted it to sound like a band you’d hear playing at the Virginia State Fair,” she said, an image that comes to life when you hear a drummer pounding on a cowbell.

The musical approach is a relief to fans who felt successful songs like “Wise Up” sent her in a dour direction, favoring morose material.

“People say that and I go along with it,” she said. “If that’s how it comes across to you, that’s how it comes across. That’s not my experience of it. For me as a songwriter, I have a whole picture. I often hear things in a lyric that I personally think are kind of funny — they’re ironic, wry or sarcastic — but I don’t necessarily think people are going to know that I mean it in that way.”

Learning to relax
Mann, first known to MTV viewers in the mid-’80s as the “Voices Carry” singer with the wild hair in ’Til Tuesday, spent the 1990s as most critics’ favorite example of music business dysfunction. She said her decision to release discs on her own SuperEgo Records label has worked “beyond my wildest dreams.”

“I was so fed up with the other way, I didn’t really care what happened,” she said. “Whatever happened, I would go with it. The Internet really, really helped us.”

It didn’t hurt that “Magnolia,” as she put it, “exploded my audience.”

“I got the impression that people took me more seriously, people in Hollywood,” she said. “It brought me a lot of work.”

One of her models for “The Forgotten Arm,” a friend who boxes and is a recovering drug addict, introduced her to the boxing world. He set her up with a lesson and helped her find a trainer.

Besides finding a band member who can be a sparring partner, Mann said there are other ways where her hobby and professional life have intersected.

“One of the biggest skills you need to learn is to relax in the ring,” she said. “You can get so exhausted because you’re so tense. But it’s hard not to be tense when somebody is trying to punch you in the face.

“I find I can apply that discipline when I’m onstage, just learning how to relax.”

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