I teach lessons to a couple teenagers and just to reenforce that I am getting old, I was teaching one About a Girl by Nirvana(which I thought was quite modern but I guess it was released 20ish years ago), and he told me he was hoping to learn something a little newer.

They also to my dismay have no interest in learning Hendrix or Zeppelin.

Any idea of some easy to play modern songs I can start teaching my students the fundamentals of guitar.

One student lists his favorite bands as Green Day and Avenged Sevenfold.

I have Smells Like teen Spirit by Nirvana and When I come Around by Green Day in mind, but I know so little about music released even in the last decade I am out of ideas.

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CREDO ELVEM IPSUM ETAIM VIVERE

anything by Nickelback

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There are even some things I will not do for money and spread any music by Nickelback is one of those things.

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CREDO ELVEM IPSUM ETAIM VIVERE

I tried to google it ....

No results found for "guitar songs from the last decade".

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Rival Sons - Pressure & Time
Foxy Shazam - I Like It
Soundgarden - Live To Rise
Just to name a few of the new songs in rotation on the local radio station...

Ask the student what songs they would like to learn. Unless you're trying to learn the solo's you can pick up 4-5 songs in an hour or two.

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Tune Low, Play Hard & Floor it!

Blitzkrieg Bop

It's timeless. It's so crude, yet still holds relevance as a revolutionary sound. (literally)

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1984 Squier Contemporary Stratocaster
1986 Peavey Envoy 110
1967 Kingston Acoustic

green day can be brutal on the pick hand but i dig that stuff. might be tough for a beginner. avenged sevenfold has 2 insane guitarists. i like it but i could only play the rythym parts. maybe.
have them bring in what they want to learn. we all had to walk before we could run. my first and only lesson was at a community center. we learned a tune called "Lord help me Jesus", i think. simple and slow. the teacher quit after 1 lesson.
after that i discovered ac/dc. everything changed after that.

I would concentrate on teaching them the fundamentals. Once they have figured out that they actually want to be musicians then they should be able to figure out 90% of the songs that are popular today.

It is a waste of your time as a teacher to try to learn the latest popular tunes just so you can teach them and they don't have to do any homework.....

That should be their lesson homework...To figure out the songs and the chords....
There is no excuse today considering how plugged in they are to the Web World...
Search...Search.....

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "

I'm thinking "Time of Your Life" by Green Day might get some extra mileage.
Plus it's acoustic, and has a picking pattern, rather than a strum, for much of the song.
And most sub-35 year olds know, and like, the song (truth be told, me too ... and I'm 56).

Wonderwall- Oasis (Intro to anchoring your pinky and beefing up chords, Intro to scoring )
Love Interruption- Jack White (basic open chords with nice strumming techniques)
Seven Nation Army- The White Stripes (no option here, they have to learn this.)
Basket Case- Green Day (power chords all day)
New York City Cops- The Strokes (single note riff, A shape barre chords, easy solo)
Dammit- Blink 182 (single notes, melody, power chords)
Hold On- Alabama Shakes (great capo and humble lead stuff)

They're no where close to learning Avenged Sevenfold. If they wanna learn rock they may wanna get more open to rock guitar, and I'd suggest these five songs for solid rock playing:
Iron Man
Living After Midnight
Smells Like Teen Spirit
Green Onions
Highway to Hell

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Teenagers by My CHemical Romance is great for powerchords and an intro to 12 bar blues.......E, A and B......simple. I have a teenager that I teach and she gave me a list of tunes she wanted to learn that included stuff like My Chemical Romance, Paramore and stuff like that...all pretty simple and great for introducing bar chords, power chords and other stuff....

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speak slowly I'm a drummer too!!

And I proudly lack a stick or a kazoo up my arse...........

Thanks for all the input so far, definitely a couple keepers in there.

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CREDO ELVEM IPSUM ETAIM VIVERE