5 Songs to Get You Through the Week #100

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. Time For Bedlam, by Deep Purple

Deep Purple has put out some statement pieces before in their nearly 5 decade run, but this particular new cut of theirs from their upcoming 20th studio album InFinite seems especially poignant. It definitely shows that these old folks have something to say about the current state of affairs in the world today. Surprisingly this is also a very classic Deep Purple sounding tune without it sounding like they are trying to copy off themselves.

2. Don't Drop That Dime, by Velvet Revolver

Most people associate Velvet Revolver with sounding balls to the wall in your face dark and heavy rock n' roll. However, they had a bit more of a diverse sound than they have usually been credit for - especially on their second/final album. This tune in particular had a really cool unplugged Grateful Dead kind of vibe to it. It actually was a bit more honky-tonk than I've ever heard any of these guys go before. It's pretty awesome.

3. Built For Comfort, by UFO

You couldn't really call yourself much in the way of a rock n' roll band back in the day if at some point you didn't cover the late great blues giant Willie Dixon, now could you? This is one of those songs that I love putting on if I want to just sit and groove to something for a few minutes but don't necessarily want to feel energized. Guitarist Michael Schenker definitely shows off some of the blusier side of his chops here rather than the hard rock and metal ones he is more known for.

4. I'm Shakin', by Little Willie John

I posted the rather bouncy and electrifying Jack White cover of this a while back, but I couldn't go without posting the original at some point as well. This has a rather haunting vintage jazz atmosphere to it that makes it that much more intriguing to listen to. It's definitely a product of its era, but the song writing itself gives it a timeless quality that a great deal of the music from that particular point in time seems to have garnered over the years.

5. Over the Hills and Far Away, by Led Zeppelin

Couldn't let Jimmy Page's birthday go by without posting a Led Zeppelin tune, now could I? This has always been one of my favorite tunes from Zeppelin - especially the intro. It was supposedly done on four different acoustic guitars which Page multi-tracked in the studio. Definitely gives it a rich built up quality. This is definitely Led Zeppelin at their creative peak, not long before things went south for them in multiple ways.

Writer's Moment:

Wow! 100 5 Songs posts, huh? I guess I've been doing this for a while. I'm glad you guys have been sticking with and enjoying these posts for as long as I've been doing them. It's always fun to see what tunes I can throw together each week into a bit of a playlist for you. That said, here's to the first 100 of these and the next!