Aimee Mann will be debuting several new songs from her upcoming new album at The Somerville Theatre on January 19. – Photo by Sheryl Nields.

By Max Sullivan

Aimee Mann is coming to Somerville Theatre on January 19. She’s spent several months in the studio working on a new album, and is just a few tweaks away from its completion.

“It’s not totally finished,” said Mann. “There were a couple of songs that I think I’m going to go back in the studio and either re-record or add to.”

Mann said that the new album, most likely to be named Charmer, will be much more “pop” than her previous releases.

“I found myself writing these pop songs,” said Mann, “Not pop songs like Katy Perry pop, but pop songs more like you’d hear on the radio in the mid-to-late ’70’s.” The Cars and ABBA came to mind when asked for examples.

“There’s a bunch of different influences, but, to me, it all sounds poppier than I usually write, and more up tempo.”

Mann’s music has always featured well-crafted arrangements. For her, a creative arrangement is key to a song’s quality.

“It’s pretty important,” said Mann. “You want to feel like you start at one place in a song and end up in another place, that it’s not just the same road that you’re walking down for three minutes. You want to have some interesting new things to look at by the time the third chorus comes along.”

Mann will be playing songs from her new album at the performance, along with plenty of material from her previous releases. She said she enjoys playing new songs live.

“It’s always fun, because [The new songs are] fresh, and you’re completely connected with them,” said Mann, “There’s no feeling of like, ‘Okay, I’ve played this 100 times, how can I make it interesting for myself?’”

While Mann enjoys playing new songs live, she is not one to risk boring her fans.

“I think my fans are very nice about hearing new songs,” said Mann, “But, having said that, I wouldn’t play five in a row. I think that’s asking too much.”

“I think [artists who play too much new material at shows] risk having people get a little bored,” continued Mann, “For a limited period, it’s exciting to hear something that’s brand new, but then you lose people because music often connects with people in repetition.”

Mann is known for her history in Boston.  She spent 15 years living there and attended Berklee College of Music in the early 1980’s before leaving school to pursue a career on the Boston music scene. While known for her work with the Boston-based band Til Tuesday, Mann’s first group was the Young Snakes, a garage band that played around town and served as her introduction to songwriting, as well as her outlet for her love of punk rock.

“I was really into punk/new wave/art noise,” said Mann, “And so the Young Snakes were almost designed to be as grating musically as possible, which was super fun.”

Mann used the band as a sandbox to explore the “do’s” and “don’ts” of writing songs.

“The whole writing process, I really didn’t know what I was doing,” said Mann. “I think it’s just, you learn by doing and writing a bunch of songs and, you know, the first 20 or 30 songs you write are going to be pretty random.”

Since then, Mann’s song construction has become far less random. See her with her band at the Somerville Theatre on January 19. Check out her website at http://www.aimeemann.com/   or follow her on twitter at @aimeemann, recently ranked 77th on the top 100 twitter accounts to follow by Paste Magazine.