Sunday, May 21, 2017

5 Songs to Get You Through the Week #118

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. Promise, by Slash featuring Chris Cornell

With the tragic passing of Soundgarden and Audioslave singer Chris Cornell last week I wanted to pay tribute a bit with one of my absolute favorite songs of his. It might not be his most profound, but I always thought that this team-up with Slash was one of the coolest things ever. Both are extremely passionate at what they do and it shines through in this tune. It's kind of sad that it isn't better known because it's absolutely wonderful.



2. Steady, by The London Souls

I saw these guys last week at the House of Blues in Chicago opening for Rival Sons. Oh man, did they put on one hell of a show for the short amount of time they were up on the stage. Their sound is like Lenny Kravitz meets The Black Keys. It might seem like a bit of an odd combination, but it works out insanely well. This tune is a fairly decent representation of their sound, but believe me when I say you need to see them live. They will blow anything done in a studio out of the water.



3. Waiting on a Song, by Dan Auerbach

Black Keys front man Dan Auerbach is getting closer to putting out his second studio solo album Waiting on a Song. He released yet another single and video from it this past week, this time for the title track. You can definitely hear the influence living in Nashville has had on him, though there is definitely still some of that bluesy sound that has always sung from his very core. That will never fully go away no matter how over-produced and mainstream he goes.



4. Cherry Bomb, by The Runaways

Usually I'm not that heavy into girl rock, but these ladies had enough of the right attitude and stuff that I can dig it. Plus, you can't really go wrong when two of the members ended up becoming famous solo artists Joan Jett and Lita Ford. This is punk rock right at its very core, even though this came out at a time where punk hadn't really quite taken off in the States just yet. It's spunky, thundering, full of attitude, and fun.



5. Still Alive, by Jonathan Coulton

Yes, I'm letting my geeky side out to play once again. This is the song that plays at the end credits of the classic first person puzzle game Portal. The song was written by famed nerdy singer/songwriter Jonathan Coulton, but was sung by the person who voices the evil AI in the game named GLaDOS. Even if you don't know a whole lot about the game, the song has multiple humorous lines that make it rather charming and fun to listen to.


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