5 Songs to Get You Through the Week #79

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. Beautiful Girls, by Van Halen

This is one of my favorite Van Halen songs of all time. If ever you need a tune to accompany your warm breezy day off in the sun in Summer then this is the one for you. It's bright, catchy, and fun. It's trademark Van Halen with Eddie's signature riffing and soloing, Michael Anthony's sunshine backing vocals, Alex's no frills attached drumming, and David Lee Roth strutting around like the west coast bleach blonde rock god he used to be back in the day.

2. 2000 Man, by Kiss

For one of their last big albums of the original line-up's run, Kiss actually covered The Rolling Stones, though not one of their bigger songs. They also decided to put lead guitarist Ace Frehley at the helm for vocals - which worked out quite well. It's a lot more shiny and driving than the original tune, but honestly I think that's ok because the Spaceman blasts this song into the cosmos here. I'd even venture to say that it beats the original.

3. All My Love, by Led Zeppelin

Although guitarist Jimmy Page kind of just decided to sit back and put his feet up on the table while this album was being written and recorded, his lack of presence by no means makes this tune any less good. It shows that bassist and multi-instrumentalist John Paul Jones could play a wickedly addictive synth and Robert Plant could still write one hell of a good song without Page being all that involved. The fact that All My Love still gets constant radio airplay to this day is a testament to this fact.

4. Girls Got Rhythm, by AC/DC

Highway to Hell was a BIG album for AC/DC. This is where they were in a bit of a transitionary period between the raw rough sounds of their first few albums and the bigger, better, and more polished ones they would have in the future once Brian Johnson replaced Bon Scott as singer. This song in particular shows that you can still cater to the average listener a little without having to compromise on your own sound and sense of artistry too much. AC/DC still got to be AC/DC, but with a little more shine.

5. The Green Manalishi (With the Two Pronged Crown) [live], by Judas Priest

This is a cover of a Fleetwood Mac song that Judas Priest included on their album Hellbent for Leather. The original is absolutely fantastic, but this song from what I can tell is what the song was truly meant to be, even if Peter Green never realized it when he originally penned the tune. It's riffy, it's dark, it's powerful. This live performance of it is even better. It has one of Rob Halford's best vocal performances of all time near the end and the guitar solos are phenomenal.