5 Songs to Get You Through the Week #86

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. No Stranger to Love, by Black Sabbath

In 1986 Black Sabbath had for the most part completely fallen apart. Guitarist Tony Iommi decided it was time for him to start going in a solo direction. The album he recorded with former Deep Purple bassist and singer Glenn Hughes titled Seventh Star however ended up getting put under the Black Sabbath name as to sell more records. Honestly, tracks like No Stranger to Love sound NOTHING like what you would expect from Black Sabbath. It's a lot more glossy, commercial, and melodic. That said however, it's still pretty powerful and passionate.

2.  Master of Puppets, by Metallica

As I said in my Throwback Thursday post last week, this is the quintessential Metallica track. It's what got me introduced to them however long ago it was at this point. It pretty much has everything that Metallica was all about when they were still a reputable band: fast heavy riffs, blistering solos, dark lyrics full of socio-political messages, and more. It's made up of several distinct parts that actually flow together quite seamlessly. If you're looking for a headbanger, go no further than this.

3. I Want Action, by Poison

Who puts Poison and Metallica on the same playlist?! Who DOES that?! I DO. Gotta keep things interesting, don't I? Besides, this track is pretty fun. Sure hair metal isn't the most honest and raw form of music, but some times you got some tunes from the genre that were actually a lot of fun to just turn on and jam out to. Some times it doesn't need to be about expression, but just having nothing but a good time. How can I resist?

4.  Why Can't This Be Love, by Van Halen

Van Hagar stuff will naturally never trump the David Lee Roth material, but that of course by no stretch of the imagination means that none of it was any good at all. Quite the contrary. There were a lot of fun poppy numbers (even though some of them were quite cheesy in the lyrics department). I think Why Can't This Be Love is probably at the top of the shelf in terms of stuff from that era of Van Halen. It's upbeat, full of sunshine vibes, has good energy, and is naturally catchy as all hell. You try not getting into it when it comes on. I dare you.

5. Devils Island, by Megadeth

Can't leave Metallica's rival band Megadeth out of the mix, can we? With more anger, heavier riffs, darker lyrics, faster rhythms, and way better guitar solos it has always been clear who the superior band was. I guess people only hail Metallica as higher because of how much they sold out. Songs like Devils Island show just how much of a thrash metal power house Megadeth could be, especially since at that point in time they could actually put a bit of production into their recordings.