Combining Big Star’s hopped-up jangle, Cheap Trick’s harmonic sense, and closet avant-gardists’ attention to musique concrète, The dB’s recorded a trio of damaged guitar-pop albums in the early eighties adjacent to lifelong buddies R.E.M.’s: intelligible in the sense that listeners could hear the lyrics; inscrutable if not impregnable as repositories of meaning. The band liked “love” enough to stick it in titles a lot, or at least as a force respected enough to keep as an abstraction.
My acquaintance with the dB’s began with spotting Peter Holsapple in the “additional musicians” credits on R.E.M.’s golden early nineties run. Stands for Decibels (1981) and Repercussion (1982) were hard to find then even as a twofer, therefore I was a late comer and an erratic non-fan. I’ve barely heard them after 1987 and remember only one cut from 2012’s Falling Off the Sky, an album to which I should give a second listen. A dozen songs is enough: after sustained exposure their noise annoys.
1. She’s Not Worried
2. We Were Happy There
3. Judy
4. A Spy in the House of Love
5. Love is for Lovers
6. Lonely Is (As Lonely Does)
7. Storm Warning
8. Black and White
9. Ask For Jill
10. Cycles Per Second
11. Change with the Changing Times
12. That Time Is Gone
Humanizing The Vacuum 
“She’s So Worried” – a song so nice you listed it twice.
I’ve only spent time with the debut, which delivered four power pop pillars (whither “Bad Reputation”?) and then…well, you’re last point stands, let’s say.
Excited to check the rest.
Corrected!
The missing link between Big Star and REM. Drummer Will Rigby’s solo album has a rather depressing song about meeting Chris Bell, “Paper Hat”. “Falling Off the Sky” is worth a second listen, but you correctly picked its best song for the 12 spot. Underwhelming live, yet I liked them enough to see them three times.
MIA: “Moving in Your Sleep”