Steve Earle plays to a new generation . . . Tracey Bryn of the Beehive, (expletives deleted) . . . Jeff Healey Band: plucking all the right strings . . . : Double Standard?

“You’ll have to beep out the bad words,” announced singer Tracey Bryn, of the hot British band Voice of the Beehive, which she fronts with her younger sister Melissa Belland, 22.

Bryn, 26, was right. Many of her comments really were mine fields of expletives. Some of her songs are too.

For instance, on the amusingly pithy “There’s a Barbarian in the Back of My Car,” from their acclaimed debut album on London/PolyGram, “Let it Bee,” a four-letter word is beeped out.

“Damn them,” snapped Bryn, referring to label execs who ordered the beeping. “I’m no nun. I don’t talk like one. I write what I mean. I don’t like being beeped.”

She complained that sexually suggestive lines on their single “I Say Nothing” were toned down for radio, though the unedited version is on the album. “What galls me is that they told me if we were guys, there wouldn’t be a problem with those words,” she said. Expletives flying, she said exactly what she thought of such sexist discrimination.

The Beehive is no copy of ‘60s girl vocal groups. “We weren’t influenced by them at all,” Bryn insisted. “We’re a rock band. Our influences are bands like the Kinks.”

Correcting a common misconception, she noted, “We’re not an all-girl group. There are two of us and three guys. So please, forget those Bangles comparisons--for a number of reasons.”

But Bryn doesn’t mind being compared to the Go-Go’s, which the Beehive strongly resembles with its perky, pop-rock sound. However, Bryn’s cynical, suggestive lyrics definitely separate the Beehive from the Go-Go’s. The Beehive songs are so striking because some of those lyrics are couched in sunny rock.

Though the Beehive is British, Bryn and Belland are really transplanted Valley girls. Their father was one of the Four Preps, a popular ‘50s vocal group.

“We grew up in Encino, well-off, with a pool and cars and all that,” Bryn explained. “I went to Birmingham High. Two of the Bangles were even in my graduating class.”

Bryn wasn’t bragging. She’s not particularly proud of her American upbringing. “I hate the Valley and what it stands for,” she said. “I have some bad memories about it. I had a few friends get raped. I was losing friends to drugs. I had to get out of there--out of the country.”

So four years ago, after a European vacation, she moved to London, pursuing a singing career she had started here on a minor level. Her sister joined her three years ago when a record company started showing interest in a demonstration record they had made.

After a hit single, “Just the City,” on an independent label in 1986, they signed to London/PolyGram and recorded the album “Let it Bee,” which has made them one of Europe’s most promising new groups.

The group plans to tour America in January, but when asked about plans to move back to this country, Bryn replied sarcastically, “It’s a nice place to visit. . . .”