David's Private Life
by e301

Comment:
There was nothing private about it. Everyone knew that David was David Cassidy, but after that girl died at his concert, he needed some sort of shield, some facade he could at least pretend to hide behind. So he started a band. Not a family band. He would never go down that road again. He felt most comfortable in the company of strangers, and the world is full of desperate musicians, so he had his pick. Together, they created a sort of Latino gospel sound that the world had never heard before, with David's sweet high tones on top if it all like a luscious whipped cream. Seven different critics were publicly moved to tears by the third track, "In Your Good-bye Arms." Was it about the end of the Partridge Family? His dead fan? The replacement of a real family with a fake one? The ruination of his rock star dreams by a teen idol nightmare? It was about all those things and more. It was about every tear that was never shed, every boy sent to a desert, the tight lips of a realization... It was with this album that David Cassidy cut his hair and became a man.

8

Death Proves Life
by electrolost

Comment:
Death Proves Life was started in 1977 by Tom Waits' little sister. She was only 14 at the time, but she loved to rock. She also became fascinated with the idea that she couldn't really be sure she was alive until she died. Morbid for a child so young, but her big brother had been taking her to cemeteries and making up stories about the people who were buried there. She couldn't help but notice that their stories were so much more varied and vivid than the lives all around her, even and especially her own life. She started her band with a couple of her disaffected classmates in an attempt to commune with those myriad magnificent dead. She turned their stories into songs, hoping that they could hear her, hoping that she could hear them. At age 16, she made her final album, "Slave to the grain," after realizing that her brother had just made up all those stories. For her the "grain" represented the direction her life was lumbering, but also the noise in the air, the noise that she used to think was the dead trying to speak to her, but now seemed nothing more than the blare of expectations, the fuzz of normalcy deadening her existence.

They found the suicide note taped to her mirror. Drawn on the bottom was her symbol for the constant noise that she couldn't get out of her ears: a swordfish trombone.

10

Daredevil Psychotic Ladybugs
by freakin_hilarious

Comment:
On The High Wire

slap me again
oh slap me again
I never wanted to be your friend
kick me harder
kick me higher
I'm getting bored on the high wire

net made of gazes
the crowd it amazes
it's one of my phases
why higher? why higher?
I'm getting bored
on the high wire.

8

Devotional Prayers Light
by yanko

Comment:
DPL was to Tibetan monk chanting what cool jazz was to jazz. Nothing like a few tinkly bells to lighten up those guttural growls. Hey, she's not a Buddhist! How'd she get on the cover? Turns out she was the guest artist on their hit single, "Hello Dalai"

10

Delicate Plant Life
by Lorene

Comment:
I see what the dandelion dreams
I taste what trees pull from the stream
sympathy is a complicated scheme
but I seem
to be on the seam
of dandelion dreams

9

Diminutive Polychromatic Lightning
by DrAchoo

Comment:
DPL's second album did indeed have more cowbell, but nothing could top their cover of Flight of the Bumblebee. Sadly, they were doomed to be one-hit wonders. 9

Dead Pan Ladies
by dragonlady

Comment:
Punk metal band Dead Pan Ladies were huge in Lansing but never quite hit the national scene. Their tribute to John Denver, "Back Roads," in which they played "Country Roads" backwards, was their best selling album... which isn't saying much.

9

Deep Purple Labyrinth
by Kelli

Comment:
Many people were surprised that a cover band would release their own album, but it turned out that DPL was hiding a musical genius. Hiding in plain sight, I might add... it was the dog they brought on stage during their shows! A lab, of course... Unfortunately, the world was not ready for his genius, and an album of howls and yelps did not go over well for people expecting to hear Deep Purple on the cheap. Sensing the disappointment of his masters, Labyrinth hit the road, sharing adventures with a fluffy cat and a mischievous bear cub, at least until his solo effort "Deep Purple Labrador" made platinum.

8

Danish Poultry League
by chesire

Comment:
The first and some say the best Danish ska band, the Poultry League was thought to have sold out in this, their major label debut. By singing in English, they were considered merely a novelty act by Americans. The title song turned into a very popular dance at Frat parties. Dancers would take turns in the center of crazed flappers, and would have to kiss the fifth chicken they counted.

7

Disarmingly Plump Lovelies
by RKT

Comment:
Pioneers in electric ukelele music, the DPL were in fact neither disarming, plump, nor lovely. In reality, they were bored construction workers who fell in love with the sound that the wind made through the girders of skyscrapers. They devoted their moonlighting career to recreating that sound. Only five harmonizing electric ukeleles could achieve it. Sadly, Tony fell to his death just days before their first album was released. He is represented by the smallest doll who looks downward towards her fate.

9