Ok so in my quest to become a guitar God I have mastered the technique of the power chord.
What I'm looking for is suggestions of songs I can play to showcase my abilities. So far I have been playing Smells Like Teen Spirit, Glycerine, Machinehead, Leaving Here by the Who, etc. Any rock and roll suggestions would be very welcome.
try some:
Sabbath- iron man, paranoid, evil woman...ect
Hendrix- hey joe
Deep Purple- smoke on the water
virtually any old punk is all that:
Bad Brains- how low can a punk get, sacred love
old Green Day...ect-
You can go long with power chords, but no matter how many songs you can play with just power chords, make sure you learn other types of chords too. If you are a beginner try any Ramones song.
Anything Ramones
Soundgarden is good for drop-D power chords
Atomjack - Your point is well taken. I'm also working on leveling up my barre chords (any cool songs to practice those?) as well as general open chords.
Basically my formula is to hack my way through the rhythm parts of these songs and then totally wuss out of the solos and the rinse->repeat.
priest, maiden
one word KISS!!!! as for other great powere chord songs china grove, anything by metallica, talk dirty to me (as long as you make a kissy face when playing), and any 80's metal tune. BTW if you are playing Hey Joe by Hendrix with power chords you shouldn't be playing Hendrix. Yes I am a Hendrix snob.
"Aren't almost ALL rock songs played with power cords "
FALSE
Power chords are responsible for the flood of lousy music in the world. You show someone how to play an easy chord and this breed of lazy guitar players was born. Sure there are some classics with Power chords, but i'm talking about this wave of modern alternative stuff that is boring and recycled power chord progressions. It's basically some kid with too much distortion slamming power chords around.
So make sure you learn a wide variety of chords. The last thing the world needs is another bad guitar player.
"You show someone how to play an easy chord and this breed of lazy guitar players was born."
That's me!