5 Songs to Get You Through the Week #137

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. Energy, by Joe Satriani

Satch definitely has an exciting record coming up on January 12th titled What Comes Next. He has Glenn Hughes on bass and Chad Smith on drums. The chemistry and energy exuded by their combined strength is definitely a force to be reckoned with and it shows through the debut single of the album. It's definitely something worth getting stoked for if you're a fan of both Satch and blood pumping, grooving rock n' roll.

2. Bad Boys, by Whitesnake

This to me is arguably the one of if not THE best songs to come out of the hair metal era of Whitesnake. It's fun, it's exciting, and makes you want to put the pedal to the metal on a warm summer night with your windows down. While hair metal as a whole is usually laughable, I always respected Whitesnake during this time because they actually knew how to play. There was some actual talent going on from people who were in it for more than just the girls, drugs, and money.

3. Stand By My Girl, by Dan Auerbach

The more I listen to this song and pay attention to the lyrics, the more I can relate to it. I've been through some rough stuff with a psychotic abusive partner myself, so I can understand where Auerbach is coming from in this one. Aside from the lyrics though, it's a surprisingly fun and upbeat song that you can dance to. Sounds like something that would have come out of the 60's and been a Top 40 hit, possibly even with the lyrics as they are.

4. Last Damn Night, by Elle King

This is definitely one of King's most heavy, stomping, rocking tunes. She just hits you with a wall of sound with not just her band, but with her immensely powerful soulful voice as well. She has some real grit and bite to it when she wants to. I just wish that this song and album as a whole wouldn't have been so overproduced. If they would have just scaled it back some it would have been a whole different beast in a good way. Listen for yourself and you'll hear what I mean.

5. I Won't Back Down, by Tom Petty

Of course I can't let this week go by without making a nod to our most recently gone too soon musical genius. This was always my favorite song of his. Gave me the courage and the strength to carry on even when I felt I couldn't. What makes this song even cooler is that in this song Petty has half the Beatles and Jeff Lynne as part of his backing band. I didn't know that until recently and I find that to be extraordinary.