5 Songs to Get You Through the Week #183

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. New York City Cops, by The Strokes

I know I'm a bit late to the party on this one (as per usual), but I've been checking out The Strokes a bit more recently and have been digging what I have been hearing. This tune in particular is pretty cool because it has that punkish garage rock vibe of the early 2000's in a nutshell. At the same time though, it still kind of reminds me of a bit of early 80's New Wave in certain areas. Regardless, I'm intrigued.

2. Purple Haze, by The Jimi Hendrix Experience

I was listening to this song at work the other day through some head phones and it was actually quite a different experience. Not only was I able to hear subtle details that I hadn't picked up on before, but the way that it was mixed and panned seemed interesting to me. The vocals being panned mostly on one side and the guitars mostly on the other seems strange to me. I'm used to most of that being pretty centered. Regardless, it made for a cool listening experience.

3. Ash Tray Heart, by The White Stripes

This is actually a cover of a Captain Beefheart song, though such a thing was not uncommon to hear from The White Stripes in their early days. They actually did a handful of them, especially live. That said, I like this version better because I love the deep, lo-fi fuzz on the guitar and the driving nature of the song overall. Plus, Jack White's voice is a bit easier on the ears for me personally. That said, both are excellent in their own right.

4. Behind the Wall of Sleep, by Black Sabbath

Over the years this song has grown on me. It's from the band's first album. It showcases a lot of their blues and jazz roots while still giving it that bombastic, gritty, dark heavy metal experience that they were known for. Interestingly enough, I never knew that the one lyric that gets repeated was "Turns your body to a corpse" instead of "Take your body to the cops". I guess even back then Ozzy Osbourne could still be a bit difficult to understand from time to time.

5. Have Love, Will Travel, by The Black Keys

This version is slower and less wild than the one done by The Sonics, but I think overall I like this one better. It has this deep, full sound to it and it has this groove to it that the other one lacks. It has swagger, style, and makes me feel like I'm dancing on a cruise ship or something. Plus, it also has a bit of a Cream vibe to it. Needless to say, it is one of my favorite songs from my absolute favorite Black Keys record.