5 Songs to Get You Through the Week #91

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. Locomotive Breath, by Jethro Tull

This chugga-chugging rock n' roller from the band lead by a flute playing badass is a classic for a reason. It starts off simple enough and gradually builds up in intensity as more and more instruments come in. One of the things I've always loved about this band though is their ability to keep a song rather intense even in the moments that have flute playing. In fact, some times the flute playing makes it even more awesome.

2.  Working Man, by Rush

This was one of the the first singles to come from the greatest thing to ever come out of Canada (like ever) from the first album Rush back in 1974. It isn't particularly progressive in terms of its writing like many of their later songs, but it's loud, proud, and rocks. You can tell the band is just playing with everything they've got, and this was before they even had Neil Peart playing drums for them.  Crank it up and just groove with it.

3. Dead Again, by Buckcherry

Admittedly this song during the verses has a bit of a Kickstart My Heart vibe to it (which is no surprise considering that Buckcherry is from LA, just like Motley Crue), but I think that's already an awesome song to begin with. They're just kind of taking a similar driving, powerhouse, yet vocally melodic idea but doing their own thing with it. Quite frankly the chorus is actually my favorite part because of how catchy that vocal hook is. 

4. Neon Knights, by Black Sabbath

Fun fact: this Ronnie James Dio sung power anthem is the song I love to absolutely BLAST in my truck whenever I have a first date and I'm on my way to either pick the girl up or meet her somewhere. It's a heavy fast song and the staccato of the power chords just kind of hits me in a way that fills me with the confidence I need in order to be able to do well and not lose my groove when I'm trying to show the young lady a nice time.

5. Rebel Rebel, by David Bowie

Though the same riff cycles over and over through this song, Bowie's magical talent for melody, flow, and engaging lyrics keeps the song the surprisingly hard rocking (for Bowie that is, especially since this was at the tail end of his glam rock Ziggy Stardust phase) tune that it is. Definitely a great song to dance to or if you need a punk rock type theme song as a youngster wanting to rebel (go figure, right?).