5 Songs to Get You Through the Week #135

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. Loving Cup, by The Rolling Stones featuring Jack White (live)

Jack White and the Rolling Stones jamming together is like bread and butter. They just go together perfectly. Both have their roots deep within the blues and that common thread definitely shines through as they put on one of the most energetic and jovial performances I have ever been able to witness. This rendition of Loving Cup definitely brings the song to a whole other level than it already was at to begin with.

2. Dazed and Confused, by Led Zeppelin (live)

This is Led Zeppelin at their peak, if you ask me. They were still young, hungry, and unafraid to be wild, unchained, and different. When they first came on the scene in 1969 they took blues music and blasted it into the stratosphere. No one else had ever played with this kind of intensity before. This particular performance of Dazed and Confused shows them going absolutely wild with the song and just jamming the hell out of it. It's an experience to witness, that's for sure.

3. Burn, by Deep Purple (live)

Speaking of playing with intensity, this performance from Deep Purple at the California Jam in 1974 showed the world just how much balls, passion, prowess, and power their newly debuted Mark III line-up had. This performance just has so much fire and energy to it. You can tell they were firing on all cylinders and proving that this new incarnation of the band could blow away anything that they had done previously. I'd say they succeeded.

4. Pressure and Time, by Rival Sons (live)

Rival Sons are definitely still making a name for themselves in the world of rock n' roll, but they have already come a long way. This is probably one of my favorite performances of their iconic track Pressure and Time (at least in terms of performances I wasn't personally present for) because you can see that they want to show everyone that they have what it takes to stand up and play with the big boys who have been at it for 30-40 years or more.

5. One Way Street, by Aerosmith (live)

This performance is from 1999. I think they were playing a New Years Eve party in Japan. Regardless, I love this performance because even though by that point they were the over commercialized ballad band that we know them to be today they weren't afraid to play the older, bluesier, less well known stuff as well. Plus, it's cool to hear Steven Tyler using his old vocal style 26 years after this song was originally released.