country rock · 1987
The Sound of Music
The dB's
By 1987 Chris Stamey was gone and Peter Holsapple was steering the dB's alone, and this record is the sound of jangle-pop learning to shrug off its cleverness and just swing.
"Change With the Changing Times" makes the case in its first bars: a big handclap-and-guitar chassis that owes as much to Memphis soul as to Big Star, with Holsapple singing like a man who has decided pop should be sturdy before it is smart. Where the early dB's records prized twitch and surprise, tracks like "Never Say When" and "A Better Place" settle into a warmer, road-tested groove that trusts the chorus to do the work. It's the record that quietly connects North Carolina power pop to the alt-country that would follow, Holsapple later lending that same instinct to R.E.M. on the road. Nobody was buying it in 1987, which is exactly why it still sounds like a private discovery.