5 Songs to Get You Through the Week #4

5 Songs to Get You Through the Week is a feature I run on Young Ears, Fresh Perspective on Sundays/early hours of Monday morning where I pick out 5 tunes that I think are notable and tell you a bit about them. The point is to give you some rocking music to help you deal with your weekday blues. You can either listen to one each day, listen to them all at once, or any other combination that you feel. As long as you can get through the week without the man getting you down, that's all I care about. Without further ado, here are the 5 tracks I've picked out for this week:

1. Rock the Blues Away, by AC/DC

Australian hard rock staple AC/DC  put out a new album Rock or Bust last Tuesday. Although I wasn't that impressed by the album overall (You can read my full review of it here), I still felt this was a good track. It's uplifting, fun, and paints a very nice musical and lyrical tapestry of the good times you have when you hang out with your friends and just let loose when life gets to be a bit too much. Definitely the kind of tune a working person needs to hear and jam out to.

2. All the Young Dudes, by Mott the Hoople

In 1972, British glam rock band Mott the Hoople were about to call it quits when much to their surprise they were approached by pop sensation David Bowie. Bowie was a fan of the band's work and wrote them a single titled All the Young Dudes to put on their next album to help bring them the kind of success that they had been striving for. Though the song helped them immensely, they still broke up not long after the album was released. Since then All the Young Dudes has been covered by countless rock and pop groups. The song itself sounds like a typical slow Bowie ballad. It starts off with a really catchy guitar melody and then goes through a chord progression that sounds a lot like Canon in D Major, by Pachelbel. Be that as it may, the chorus is easy to sing along to and remember.

3. Man in the Box, by Alice in Chains

If you want something a little more alternative/grungy, I've got you covered with this. Man in the Box, by Alice in Chains is interesting because to me it blends a lot of elements of classic rock, funk, and metal while still having a distinctly grunge-like sound to it. The soloing in it really reminds me of Jimi Hendrix and Zakk Wylde in a way. What really gets me off though are some of the melodies played on guitar and talk-box. The two instruments blend together so well that they almost sound like a whole new instrument.

4. Pulling Teeth, by Green Day

This fun tune comes from punk band Green Day's 1994 breakthrough album Dookie. It isn't loud and fast like many of the tunes on the album, but the vocal melodies and harmonies are very pleasant. The funny thing is that the subject matter of the lyrics is quite dark and disturbing even though the music itself sounds pretty fun and upbeat. It's a good example of the meaning of something going over your head if you aren't paying close enough attention to pick up on it.

5. Surfing With the Alien, by Joe Satriani

If ripping and running shredding guitars are more your dig, check out Surfing With the Alien, by guitar legend Joe Satriani if you haven't already. In this song the man takes the electric guitar to a whole other level and does things you never thought possible with the instrument. There are no vocals in this song as is the case for the majority of Satriani's catalog, but that doesn't make the song any less enjoyable. The melodies make you forget the absence of any singing. You don't have any time to. You keep wondering what kind of tricks he is going to pull off next. It is loud, fast, creative, and fun.