Six Awesome Songs You Haven't Heard

By Johnny Apocalypse
BSchin2188@aol.com
May 1st, 2012

So there I was, driving to Wendy's with a co-worker. I had an AC/DC compilation album that I'd pieced together playing, and my friend was staring at the CD player with a curious look on his face.

"What, don't like AC/DC?" I asked. "I can change it for you."
"No, it's not that. I've just never heard this before. Is it new?"
"No, man, that's on the 'For Those About to Rock' album."
"Really? I have that one."
"Let me guess, you only played the title track right?"
"Well yeah, it's not supposed to be a very good album."

At this point, I slammed my head into the steering wheel, which caused the car to violently swerve into on-coming traffic. The resulting crash killed seven people and a white-tailed deer, derailed a train and decimated a small town. Once we were released from the scene of the accident, I warned my friend about the dangers of trusting reviews to tell you what not to listen to.

Truth be told, "For Those about to Rock" is not a great album. However, there is definitely more than one song worth blasting on there. I figured that there are probably a few others out there that have missed some awesome songs by not playing an entire album through at least once. While I'm working on getting a law passed to fix this problem, I figured I'd jump off to a head start by naming some amazing songs that many have missed.

Now some of these you may well know, and there's probably some real rock aficionados out there who will know all of these songs, but many of the masses are clueless to their existence.

Suppose you don't have the album, but want to hear the songs anyway? Swing on over to Youtube. As far as I'm concerned, this is the only reason Youtube really exists. It's the perfect all-request radio. Name any song, and someone will have uploaded a video for it (many of which are kind enough to include the lyrics in case you're in a karaoke mood).

Since AC/DC started me thinking about this article, let's start off with three songs from their "For Those About to Rock" album.

Put the Finger on You - The second song on the album in question. While singer Brian Johnson wasn't quite the lyricist that Bon Scott was, this tune shows that he could at least do pretty well in his own right. Fast paced, great guitar work, hard and intense, this song should have been just as big a hit as much anything AC/DC ever wrote.

Let's Get it Up - The third song. I've always had the feeling that this was the band's attempt to do another "Big Balls"-esque song, with lots of allusions to sex. In short, it didn't work out that way but the song is still fun.

COD - I can't remember which track number this is, but the song is one that I never skip when I'm having an AC/DC marathon. Had they tossed this onto their "Flick of the Switch" album, they might have had some better reviews.

Okay, that's enough AC/DC. Here are a few other great songs that belong on the list though.

Hunting Girl by Jethro Tull - Jethro Tull's "Songs from the Wood" album was fairly popular when it was released, but much of the songs have been forgotten over time. Unless you were alive in the era, the only Tull songs most people know come from the "Aqualung" album, but this album has some beauties as well. And while they've played "Hunting Girl" in concert off and on for the years, I've never heard it on the radio, much less heard it mentioned by any young folk who are into classic rock. The song is a classic depiction of so many things the band were known for- more complicated rock, leaning towards hard rock but with a strong folk background as well. If you've ever liked anything Jethro Tull did, definitely give this one a shot.

Living After Midnight, covered by Disturbed - While I've always enjoyed the original version of this song by Judas Priest, I think Disturbed has actually outdone them here. David Draiman's vocals fit the tune perfectly, and the band's style of metal nicely updates the song as a whole. Not even many Disturbed fans know this one, since it wasn't released on any of the band's albums. It was instead put on a tribute album, geared towards modern covers of British metal bands.

The Unforgiven, covered by The Vitamin String Quartet - Vitamin String Quartet hasn't become terribly popular yet, even though they've been doing their thing for a very long time. They take an album's worth of songs from one band, and cover them in a classical style for tribute albums. Now if you absolutely despise classical music this may well not catch your ears, but I still think it's worth a shot. And their cover of Metallica's "The Unforgiven" is very impressive. Also of note for Metallica's fans is their rendition of "Hero of the Day".

You know what, I'm really having trouble coming up with a closing statement for this article. I've tried about five different ways, and nothing good is coming out. Probably doesn't help that I just worked twelve hours. So. Listen to these songs. Right now.




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