5 Songs to Get You Through the Week #85

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. The Impressario, by Overclocked Remix

This is one of my absolute favorite covers of a video game song EVER. Final Fantasy VI had a huge segment where the party takes part in an opera, so this tune is a medley of all the parts they showed in the game but turned into a rock song in the style of Queen. It's like if Bohemian Rhapsody met Final Fantasy. The lyrics are also quite powerful and touching for something that is basically another starcrossed lovers story.

2. Wig in a Box, by Stephen Trask

From the 1998 stage musical and 2001 film Hedwig and the Angry Inch, I find this tune to be rather catchy. I first came across it when I went to my local Rocky Horror Picture Show showing and they were playing music videos on the theater screen while people were still filing into the theater. This tune is definitely catchy and a nice balance between a soft piano ballad and a loud party going rock n' roll anthem. That said, if you liked Rocky then you'll dig this for sure.

3. Love Reign O'er Me, by The Who

This tune is the epic conclusion to The Who's concept album/rock opera Quadrophenia. Personally, I have rarely if ever heard singing and wailing as passionate and powerful as what Roger Daltrey does in Love, Reign O'er Me. You can almost feel the torrential rain pouring down on you and the blistering winds tear across your face during some of the more powerful moments. If you want something to get your blood pumping, look no further.

4. Mother, by Pink Floyd

It's not uncommon for Pink Floyd to put out tracks that are rather powerful emotionally, and not always in a happy positive way. If feels are what you're looking for, then this will do the trick even better than the previous track I mentioned. The Cold War was kind of a big deal when Floyd wrote this track and it had a major impact on their childhoods. Definitely a big part of the character Pink's sphere of influence during the course of the story of The Wall.

5. Teenagers, by My Chemical Romance

This is one of the last songs I ever expected to hear out of an emo band. It has a heavier classic rock vibe than I'm used to hearing out of them. Love the bluesy shuffle groove that it has throughout. Too bad they didn't make more tunes like this when they were around. They were surprisingly good at it for a band that mostly made rather formulaic pop punk music to appeal to a younger teenaged audience.