Jules Shear’s Got a Group Again . . . Edie Brickell’s Got Feelings . . . Sam Brown’s Got Good Genes : Jules Shear--Rejuvenated

Jules Shear broke up with Aimee Mann a while back. Of course, both are singers who write of romantic affairs with sometimes brusque candidness. And both did just finish their first post-disentanglement albums with their respective bands; Shear’s Reckless Sleepers have their debut LP just out, and Mann’s ‘Til Tuesday has one due in early November.

So does this mean fans can expect opposing perspectives on the split, a la Faulkner?

Maybe. “ ‘Til Tuesday’s album is supposed to be about me!” admited Shear, half-astonished, half-flattered. “It’s very different from the way I write. Because if Aimee breaks up with a guy, she’ll write a song about breaking up with a guy and what that was like, whereas if I break up with a girl, I might write a song from the girl’s point of view singing about the guy, and never really say that’s what it is. Aimee has no fear about relating her personal life for all the world to see. I don’t know if it’s fear that I have of that, but I definitely do like to throw in a little subterfuge when I write.”

Shear doesn’t resent Mann’s honesty, though; from what he’s heard of the ‘Til Tuesday album, he believes her head-on approach is as good as his sneak attack.

“If she writes a great song and it’s about me, I’m happy, no matter what she says about me,” insisted Shear. “If she writes a bad song and it’s about me, I’m unhappy and I don’t care what she says about me.”

If Shear’s music seems slightly less strictly personal, that may also be because the Reckless Sleepers’ dandy debut, “Big Boss Sounds,” is the first non-solo album he’s made since the turn of the decade--and as a collaboration it is thus as oriented toward rhythm as toward Shear’s randy wordplay.

Shear feels rejuvenated not just by having an honest-to-goodness group again but also by having a label, I.R.S., whose very outsider posture makes him feel less an outsider. At previous companies, his oft-wordy music was thought difficult and alternative--whereas right now the Sleepers’ plaintive, hooky “If We Never Meet Again” is considered I.R.S.’s best shot at hitting the Top 40.

If a Reckless Sleepers single did make Top 40 radio, it wouldn’t be Shear’s first hit--just the first one he’s sung as well as written. His “All Through the Night” did well for Cyndi Lauper, and “If She Knew What She Wants” was bedy, bedy good to the Bangles.

“A lot of people ask, ‘Isn’t it frustrating to write hits for other people and not have them for yourself?’ Even though it might be frustrating to put out records and not have hits, it’s not frustrating to have someone else do your songs and have ‘em be hits. It’s wonderful! You don’t do anything! The song’s already written, somebody else takes it and records it, they go on the road, they do all the interviews, they do all the work. . . . No, there’s nothing frustrating about that at all.”