All right, it’s time to continue on with my long-running series where I pick five of my favorite songs from a year. Not necessarily my five definitive favorites, but five of my favorites. As always.

This year is 1990. We have left the golden decade of the 1980’s in the dust and music was shaping up to be a hell of a lot different. Even though the symbolic marker of the change was 1991, there was plenty of evidence that things were getting really different just a year before. Music was moving into other territories and a lot of the 80’s standards were about to be left behind. I was entering my teenage years just as the decade kicked off so I was in prime position to take in these changes, even if I didn’t quite know what all was going on right off the bat.

That’s about enough of the lead-in, this isn’t a comprehensive analysis of what happened in the early ’90’s, this is just a list of five songs I really like from 1990. Let’s have at it.

Megadeth – Tornado Of Souls

By 1990 I was moving way more into heavy metal as a whole, it was becoming my favorite form of music and that hasn’t changed 35 years later. Megadeth released their magnum opus Rust In Peace this year and it is in my top five of favorite albums of all time. A lot of the album if full of nuclear war and the government sucks kind of stuff that Dave Mustaine is very fond of, but this song is more personal and involves past relationships and rebounding from them. And of course it’s chock full of guitars, the kind of stuff only Mustaine and Marty Friedman could get up to. One of metal’s greatest songs.

Kreator – People Of The Lie

We’ll stay with thrash and this time visit the German titans on their fifth album, the excellent Coma Of Souls. Here Kreator aimed their sights at Nazis, the scourge of their own country. The song is a powerful rant against the shallow stances of Nazi believers. Sadly the song has become much more relevant today, but this was an excellent thrasher with a great message back in the day.

The Black Crowes – She Talks To Angels

Rock was by no means dead in 1990, but it sure was changing. One face of that change was the sudden ascent of the Black Crowes, a blues-based/jam band sort of prospect armed with a cache of catchy, infectious and effective songs. My favorite of the bunch is this somber ballad about a gal who is caught up in a drug addiction. While the song is not based in much reality, it is a haunting and touching affair that rings true no matter what the calendar says.

AC/DC – Thunderstruck

Ok, so not everything changed in rock in 1990. The good old standard AC/DC arrived on the scene yet again, this time armed with the stellar Razor’s Edge album. The opening track and lead single became one of the band’s hallmark songs, yet another addition to their playlist on classic rock radio that is played to no end. It’s easy to hear why – this is one massive slab of rock badassery. It’s guitars upon guitars, pounding drums and screeching, which is just how I like it.

Judas Priest – Painkiller

So Priest didn’t have the best latter half of the ’80’s – Turbo and Ram It Down aren’t “bad” albums per se, but they aren’t highlights of the Priest catalog either. The band reconvened as the decade changed and HOLY SHIT did they find the heavy metal again. Painkiller is a blast of molten hot metal unlike that which the band had even done to this point, despite being one of the signposts of the genre. This song and whole album will rip your face off, and that’s exactly how we like it around here. And by we I mean me, as I’m the only one typing bullshit on this site.

That wraps up 1990. Suffice to say, next week’s post will be somewhat important, as 1991 will be upon us. It was such an important year to music as a whole and my own musical fandom that it might require something a bit special. We shall see next week.