Anthems

In the spirit of a previous post, I've decided to list a few songs that I consider my personal anthems. These might not be the most well known tunes from the particular artist, but they are songs that either introduced me to the bands or always remind me of a period in my life.

Again, in no particular order:

1. Deep Purple - Highway Star. I still remember the first time I heard this song. A family friend borrowed our car and left a Deep Purple's Greatest Hits tape (yeah this was some time ago). When I heard Ritchie Blackmore guitar solo I was just completely floored. This led me to explore the rest of the album and discover Deep Purple. Oh and we never got to return the tape to the owner cos he went back to Houston after his contract's finished. I still have it, heheh.
2. Rush - Anthem. What an appropriate title. I first heard this amazingly powerful rock tune through Yngwie Malmsteen's version in the Inspirations album. At that time I've heard about Rush many times and how Neil Peart is a source of inspiration for 95% of great rock drummers, but I've never actually heard any of their songs. One time I found their Greatest Hits in a double-tape (again, long time ago) compilation. I guess I was very lucky cos these kind of things were almost impossible to find in Indonesia. The album conveniently covers their career throughout the 70's and 80's although the mix is pretty muddy.
   
3. Joe Satriani - Summer Song. I saw the yellowish low budget video of Summer Song in Channel V sometime in '98. That was the first time I saw an instrumental piece on a mainstream station and I was excited as hell. I actually recorded the video to a VHS tape so I could play it over and over. This was the beginning of my obession with Satch that I began collecting all his albums.
   
4. Bryan Adams - Summer of '69. I played this song about a gazillion times with my first half-decent band in high school(Kenia, Andra, Heru, Taufik, AA, where are you people now??). We used to perform the tune so often our friends asked if we actually knew how to play other songs.
   
5. Dream Theater - New Millennium. A band mate (for one gig) recommended me the band and told me "they play these crazy instrumental stuff for 15 minutes" and that got me kinda interested. I bought the Falling To Infinity album and my first impression was "what the hell is this?" Yeah I guess you don't get crazy over prog rock instantly. After repeated listening only then I realized what a bad ass band Dream Theater is.
   
6. Casiopea - Asayake. The immortal Japanese fusion tune.
   
7. Evanescence - Bring Me To Life. Okay so this song was played a million times in Hitz.fm, but this was the the song that brought the glory to Shirley's Temple in Glitz 2003. Ah the good old times.
   
8. Guns N Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine. This is more like everyone's anthem. I never get bored listening Axl singing about the blue eyed girl, and Slash's guitar tone is so freaking awesome.
   
9. Texas - Halo. I watched the video many many times in '97. The music and the Hong Kong themed video were so mesmerizing.
   
10. U2 - Where The Streets Have No Name. 80's U2 rock. 90's U2 suck.