What should I learn how to play on guitar next?

[tahrey]

Pretty much all of the Bon Jovi. They get shat on as a cotton wool band, and I'm never entirely sure what to make of Jon, but the actual musicians are pretty skilled, and the solos per album ratio is quite good. Dry County for the single example.

Lots of non-Glee Journey, too. Simplistic but satisfying.

Oh, and another vote over here for Sultans of Swing and other DS stuff. Knopfler is pretty good at the old axework.

Hopefully that's not too typical. I've tried to keep it in the less expected but still realistic zone.

PS Freebird, lol. And Paranoid, too.

 

[tahrey]

Wait, you want to learn fast leads but you don't want metal?

Yeah... I'm of no help here then. Maybe Knights of Cydonia by Muse? Or any of their origin/absolution era stuff. Orrrr give some Hendrix a shot. Little wing is a fun one to learn.

I'm pretty sure most Muse guitarwork is actually ripped off of lesser known chiptunes, or composed on a synth first or something, it just seems so weird compared to most other guitar stuff. But then I say that as a non-player. Guy I know who was trying to learn it said it was kinda difficult ... I had less difficulty transcribing some of their leads into Nokia Composer ringtones than he did playing them on the actual instrument

I think Matt Bellamy actually said something about it being deliberately atypical at some point, but that was on a random radio interview I heard in the car...

(NB weird, yes, but still wonderful)

Hard level: recreate Map of the Problematique entirely with electric 6-string, effects pedals, mic and drum machine.

 

[tahrey]

Also, one last tip:

Any dubstep or electronic song + pentatonic scale = fun.

That's all I got.

YES.

I have for a while been waiting for someone to do brass band covers of, e.g. Pendulum, the Prodigy etc (I figure the instrumentation would just work really well somehow), but I'll settle for, as hinted above with the riff on Muse, electronica, chiptunes, dubstep and the like being thrashed out on an axe.

Heck, one of my favourite bands at the moment is collaborative four piece with mental drummer, female android guitar wrecker, and a vocalist, headed up by a chiptune artist contributing fat synth noises, composition, and his once solo handle... Some of the older demoscene riffs in his oeuvre seem to translate very nicely to overdrive and fuzz.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Wait, you want to learn fast leads but you don't want metal?

Yeah... I'm of no help here then. Maybe Knights of Cydonia by Muse? Or any of their origin/absolution era stuff. Orrrr give some Hendrix a shot. Little wing is a fun one to learn.

I'm pretty sure most Muse guitarwork is actually ripped off of lesser known chiptunes, or composed on a synth first or something, it just seems so weird compared to most other guitar stuff. But then I say that as a non-player. Guy I know who was trying to learn it said it was kinda difficult ... I had less difficulty transcribing some of their leads into Nokia Composer ringtones than he did playing them on the actual instrument

Yeah he writes everything on a synthesizer (+ sometimes a piano I think, not sure) before transcribing them onto guitar. Plus he rips off classical music occasionally too. A lot of it's fairly hard to play, but it's certainly doable 'cos there's no lightspeed solos or anything. Except resistance, which he plays on a doublenecked guitar, tapping on one neck and doing slides and vibrato on the other... if you can pull that off, serious kudos.

OP: Given it some more thought and here are some more suggestions.
MUSE
The upside of learning Muse stuff is that basically everyone knows it, so it goes down well whenever you play it.

Hysteria is fairly straightforward if you can get the bends right and it sounds extremely tasty, Plug in Baby is a great fingering exercise to improve your general technique, and Knight of Cydonia is a great one to learn tremolo picking, so I'd recommend learning those to basically anyone who wants to play guitar.
Plus Animals is extremely slinky and in 5/4 so it would be good if you want to get into non-standard time signatures. Haven't learned it yet and it sounds fairly tricky, but it would be worth giving a shot.


TOOL
Tool write some cool fucking riffs. Learn some Tool. Schism mostly alternates 6/8 and 7/8 but varies a lot, so it's a great one to practice alternate time signatures. Plus there's some interesting palm muting and rolling hammer-ons and stuff, so it's fun too. 46 & two also has some interesting timing stuff but it's more straightforward and the riffs are more in-your-face, so it's fun too. Basically any of their stuff in worth learning though.

+Hendrix. Learn some Hendrix.

Can you tap? If you can tap you might find this one interesting to learn, even if it is a bit metallic:

Learn Nothing Else Matters (Metallica). It gives an easy introduction to fingerstyle guitar playing, and it's also a great song to impress women

^ This too. He knows his stuff.

 

[Total LOLige]

Driver 8 by R.E.M is a really fun song to play, sounds awesome on acoustic, might not be that challenging if you've been playing for two years though.

Maybe a little too country, probably not what your looking for come to think of it but ah well.

 

[XMark]

Learn Nothing Else Matters (Metallica). It gives an easy introduction to fingerstyle guitar playing, and it's also a great song to impress women

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

There's a shocking lack of Jimi Hendrix in that list.


Learn the chord progression, the scale and the feel of the licks and add your own flavour. Fun to be had.

 

[Private Custard]

Marooned by Pink Floyd......definitely!

 

[loc978]

From one of my guitar-playing friends who says it's really fun and makes you work a lot on timing and precision:

Spoiler: Rush - YYZ

Also, why not be the first one to suggest some Rush.
My first twenty or so reflexes for this question were all face-melting metal (spurred on by the fact that you can play The Trooper), so I went to an outside source.

 

[Zen Bard]

As other posters have mentioned, there's a conspicuous lack of Rush and Hendrix on this list. So...

"Voodoo Chile" - Jimi Hendrix
"Hey Joe" - Jimi Hendrix (it's more complicated than it sounds)
"Limelight" - Rush
"Red Barchetta" - Rush

Speaking of Prog:

"Long Distance Runaround" - Yes
"On the Loose" - Saga

Miscellaneous Classic Stuff:

"The Cowboy Song" - Thin Lizzy (both solos by both guitarists are a blast)
"Jailbreak" - AC/CD
"Hotel California" - Eagles (chicks dig it)


And I'm a huge fan of the Allman Brothers Band so:
"Blue Sky", "Ramblin' Man" and hell...may as well just go for the hatrick and add "Jessica"

(that reminds me...quick correction: "Leila" isn't by Cream. It's Derrick and the Dominoes, Clapton's "supergroup" with Duane Allman)


Finally, some stuff from THIS millennium:

"Like a Stone" - Audioslave
"Cold Haearted *****" - Jet
"Black Rain" - Soundgarden

Whew! Think I'm gonna grab my axe and jam now...

 

[triggrhappy94]

There's a shocking lack of Jimi Hendrix in that list.

Learn the chord progression, the scale and the feel of the licks and add your own flavour. Fun to be had.

Oh yeah, I actually already know that one. I just didn't include it, because I forgot chord progression.
It wouldn't be hard to figure out again.

 

[mitchell271]

There's a shocking lack of Jimi Hendrix in that list.


Learn the chord progression, the scale and the feel of the licks and add your own flavour. Fun to be had.

One does not simply learn Hendrix songs. Seriously, it's a pain in the ass learning some of the chords for his songs, especially the F7#9. *shivers*

OT: If you like metal, there's plenty of Metallica which serves as a great introduction to a lot of metal techniques.
Go in this order:
Ender Sandman
Nothing Else Matters
One
Master of Puppets

Then Slayer with:
Raining Blood
Angel of Death

Then Megadeth with:
Holy Wars, The Punishment Due
Killing is my Buisness and Buisness is Good

That's a good starting place for metal \m/

 

[piinyouri]

Spoiler: ATTACK OF THE TRIPLETS!

I am not a guitar player but I can sort of tell that Jon Shaffer is the Angus Young of heavy metal.
Same shit, different order/arrangement. Regardless, I imagine this is fun to play. It would probably be good for building pure muscle endurance as well.

Another vid just in case someone doesn't know what I mean.

Spoiler: Dat riff