5 Songs to Get You Through the Week #34

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. Yankee Rose, by David Lee Roth

After quitting Van Halen in 1985, front man David Lee Roth embarked on a briefly successful solo career. He recruited quite the band too: Gregg Bissonette on drums, Billy Sheehan on bass, and Steve Vai on guitar. The main single Yankee Rose from the debut album Eat 'em and Smile is a fun stereotypically 80's hair metal song. However, with such fantastic players implementing some real skill and artistry into it and Roth being as charming as he is it's hard not to love it.

2. Don't Stop, by Fleetwood Mac

Fleetwood Mac keyboardist Christine McVie just had a birthday! What better a way to commemorate the occasion than with one of the best known hits she wrote and performed with Fleetwood Mac? I always did like how this song always did have an uptempo marching kind of feel to it. It's also a great way to tell someone that even though you aren't in love with them any more you still care about them.

3. Mystery, by Dio

The late great metal titan Ronnie James Dio also just had a birthday! Were he still with us he would have been 73. Mystery was always one of my favorite solo tracks of his because it is an under rated hidden gem in his catalog. It is so melodic vocally yet still packs the same kind of punch that you would expect a Dio song to. It's probably one of the more pop-like numbers he wrote but he made it work and that is all that matters.

4. San Francisco Blue, by Joe Satriani

Guitar wizard extraordinaire Joe Satriani is about to put out a new album (Shockwave Supernova) later in the month. One of the tracks that he is currently streaming from it is a cool swingy bluesy number called San Francisco Blue. It has a pretty warm jaunty vibe to it that stays throughout the duration of the track. It puts you in a better mood. I always did like the way that Satriani plays the blues despite his high amounts of technical prowess.

5. Slow Ride, by Foghat

Stoner rock doesn't get much better than Slow Ride, by Foghat now does it? Not that I condone such illegal activity, but if you do partake this is a classic track that you have to do your thing to at least once. It's not hard to understand why with how crazy psychedelic the guitar solos get during multiple parts of the song. Hell, even the intro is pretty spacey and out there. Do yourself a favor and get it on vinyl if you do choose to get happy.