5 Songs to Get You Through the Week #78

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. Number of the Beast, by Iron Maiden

If Iron Maiden had only one song that they had to be known for, it would most definitely be this one. It's iconic; from the quote from Revelations that opens it, to Bruce Dickinson's banshee-like scream, to its thunderous riffing. Though on a surface level it seems like a very Satan worshiper kind of song, if you listen to the lyrics it's actually a warning against Lucifer and his evil forces. That is, if you believe in that kind of thing anyway.

2. Love Bites, by Def Leppard

Love Bites is 80's hair metal ballad cheese at its most glorious. As much as well all jab at bands like Def Leppard for using way too much hair spray and having some of the the cheesiest songs, they really did know what they were doing musically. Sonically this is a rather ear pleasing tune because the guitar melodies, the harmonized backing vocals, and the right amount of vocal grit in the right places really make Love Bites knock one out of the park.

3. Now I'm Here, by Queen

When I saw Queen a few years back, it was really something else. Yeah, Adam Lambert is no Freddie Mercury, but he did the music a lot of justice - especially when they chose to open with this epic rock n' roll number. It starts off with this awesome beefy riff that only leads into something even more big, grand, yet still very much rock n' roll. This was one of the first songs that had the sound that Queen would become associated with over their decades long career.

4.  Long Live Rock and Roll, by Rainbow

Ritchie Blackmore put together a new incarnation of Rainbow recently! This is pretty exciting news, considering he hasn't played rock in about 20 years. He has focused on his Renaissance music project Blackmore's Night with his wife Candace Night. That said, it's fun to dig up and remember the old songs of his we know and love such as Long Live Rock and Roll - a rather upbeat driving hard rock tune that is actually a bit more bluesy than most of Rainbow's compositions.

5.  American Man, by Velvet Revolver

This is by far one of Velvet Revolver's most under rated songs. It has quite a bit of a flamenco feel to it, but at the same time it's still a very balls to the wall hard rock song - something one could expect of a band comprised primarily of former members of Guns N' Roses. The best parts are Slash's guitar solos. They are like little songs in themselves and really add to the dramatic and epic atmosphere that the song provides to the listener.