The nineties are where a lot of guitarists find their reason to start. The decade turned away from technique for its own sake and towards songs a person could actually play, which is lucky for anyone learning.
This page runs across the whole decade rather than one corner of it. If you want to go deeper into a particular strand, there are separate pages for grunge, indie and punk.
What changed for guitarists in the nineties
Two things, and they pulled in opposite directions. Distortion got heavier and tunings got lower, which is where drop D and half step down became normal rather than unusual. At the same time the playing got simpler, because the songs that mattered were built on four chords and an idea rather than on a solo.
That combination is why so much of this decade is reachable early. A beginner can play a great deal of it convincingly inside a few months, which is not true of the seventies.
The songs ordered roughly by how approachable the guitar part is, easiest first, so you can start at the top and work down.
Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana
Four power chords and a chorus pedal, and it rearranged what rock radio played. The riff runs F5, Bb5, Ab5, Db5, all movable shapes on the low strings, so a beginner who can hold a two-note barre will have it inside an hour. The real lesson is dynamics.
Verses are clean and thin, the choruses arrive with everything switched on, and the distance between those two states is what makes the song work. Most learners play it at one volume and wonder why it falls flat.
Smells Like Teen Spirit Guitar Tabs
Heart-Shaped Box by Nirvana
Tuned to a dropped Db, so the low string sits at D flat and everything is looser than you expect. The verse rides a slow three chord move with a lot of air around it and the chorus answers with a wall of fuzz. Getting the pull between those two things right is the whole exercise.
Cobain’s part is not technically demanding, but the timing is loose in a way that resists being copied off a grid. Play it too neatly and it stops sounding like the record.
Even Flow by Pearl Jam
Stone Gossard’s riff is a funk figure wearing hard rock clothes, built on a sliding shape that never lands quite where you expect it to. Learners get the notes quickly and the feel slowly. Syncopation is the difficulty here, so a metronome will do more for you than speed will.
Mike McCready’s solo is a separate project, a fast run through blues shapes that rewards a year of pentatonic work first. Take the riff now and come back for the lead later.
Man in the Box by Alice in Chains
From Facelift in August 1990, and one of the decade’s best riffs for a player who already has power chords under control. Everything is a half step down, so tune to E flat first or nothing will sit with the record.
The main figure is a slow wah inflected line rather than a chug, and the wah is doing real work in it rather than decorating. Jerry Cantrell’s harmonised guitars behind the chorus are worth pulling apart and learning as two separate parts.
Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden
The chords slide through voicings that refuse to settle into one key, which is why the song still sounds off-centre thirty years on. A learner gets a lot from working the verse out slowly, because the shapes are ordinary forms pushed into unusual places rather than anything exotic.
The chorus is easier than the verse, which is unusual. Kim Thayil’s solo is drenched in effects and hard to reproduce cleanly, so most players leave it and lose very little.
Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine
Drop D, one finger, and a riff that has taught more people their first heavy song than almost anything else from the decade. Tune the low E down to D and the main figure becomes a single barred shape sliding between a few positions. That makes it a genuine beginner piece.
The hard part arrives later, in the stop start section where the band drops out and comes back, because you have to count silence accurately. Tom Morello’s solo is a different animal and uses a toggle switch as a rhythm device.
Killing in the Name Guitar Tabs
Bulls on Parade by Rage Against the Machine
The riff is heavy and slow enough to learn in an evening, sitting on the low strings with a wah pedal doing most of the character work. Where it gets interesting is the solo, which is barely played on the fretboard at all. Morello scratches the strings above the nut and works the pickup selector, so what you are learning is a technique rather than a set of notes.
Worth attempting even if you never get it clean. From Evil Empire in April 1996.
Cowboys from Hell by Pantera
July 1990, and the record that pushed American metal into its next shape. Dimebag Darrell’s opening riff moves fast between low chugging and a bright figure higher up the neck, and the jump between those registers is what catches learners out. Your picking hand has to stay tight through the palm muted sections without stiffening for the runs.
The solo is genuinely hard, full of wide bends and pinch harmonics that take months to place reliably. Learn the riff first and treat the lead as a long term goal.
Walk by Pantera
One of the great mid tempo metal riffs, and easier than it sounds. The figure repeats over a slow, heavy groove and the challenge is not the notes but the swagger. Rushing kills it.
Sit exactly on the beat and let the gaps breathe, which is harder discipline than playing something fast. A good song for a player who can already handle power chords and wants to work on feel instead of speed. From Vulgar Display of Power in February 1992.
Freak on a Leash by Korn
Munky and Head play seven strings tuned well below standard, so a six string player has to transpose or accept that it will sit higher than the record. The verse is built on scrapes and muted noise more than chords, which is unusual and useful practice in playing very little. The chorus opens into heavy low string work.
What makes it worth learning is the space. Most beginners fill every bar, and this song teaches you not to. From Follow the Leader, August 1998.
My Own Summer (Shove It) by Deftones
Stephen Carpenter tunes down a long way for this, to a dropped shape a step and a half below standard, and the slack strings are the point. The main riff is only a few notes and a beginner can play them, but keeping the low string quiet between hits is a real skill. Everything rings and blurs if your palm is lazy.
The quieter sections lean on harmonics and restraint. From Around the Fur in October 1997.
My Own Summer (Shove It) Guitar Tabs
Under the Bridge by Red Hot Chili Peppers
The intro is the reason people learn this and it is harder than it looks written down. Frusciante plays chord shapes high on the neck with the notes picked out rather than strummed, so you are moving between fingerings while keeping a melody clear. That combination trips up a lot of intermediate players.
The song settles into simpler territory once the band comes in. Standard tuning throughout, which surprises people who assume those voicings need something exotic.
Give It Away by Red Hot Chili Peppers
A funk lesson disguised as a rock song. The guitar part is built from short muted stabs and a sliding octave figure, and almost all of the work is in the right hand. You are learning to hit a note and immediately kill it.
Play the same notes with a loose picking hand and it turns to mush. Frusciante’s solo section is wild and worth attempting once the groove is solid. Beginners get the main part quickly and spend far longer making it sound right.
Everlong by Foo Fighters
Drop D, and one of the most useful songs here for an intermediate player. The verse riff is a fast repeating figure that demands even alternate picking for long stretches, which is where most people fall apart rather than on any single hard shape. Stamina is the real test.
The chorus is straightforward big chords by comparison. There is a quiet middle section that teaches dynamic control well. Released August 1997 from The Colour and the Shape.
1979 by The Smashing Pumpkins
Everything is a half step down and the guitar part is deliberately plain, because the song is carried by a loop and a bassline. That makes it an unusually good beginner piece from a band better known for dense layering. You are holding sustained chord shapes with a lot of chorus and delay on them, so tone matters more than technique.
Learning to sit inside a repeating groove without ornamenting it is the skill on offer. The album arrived October 1995 and the single in January 1996.
Zombie by The Cranberries
Four chords, repeated, for the whole song. Em, C, G and D in a loop, and that is genuinely all of it. As a first electric song it is close to ideal, because the arrangement hands you a quiet clean verse and a loud distorted chorus over identical shapes.
Noel Hogan’s lead lines above the progression are simple enough to add once the rhythm is automatic. The dynamic jump is the lesson. Released September 1994.
Wonderwall by Oasis
Capo at the second fret, then a small handful of shapes most beginners already own. The strumming pattern is the actual content of the song and it takes far longer to internalise than the chords do. Noel Gallagher keeps the top two strings ringing through every change, which is what gives the part its drone.
Get that and it sounds right. Miss it and it sounds like someone playing chords. Overplayed for thirty years and still a good teaching piece.
Don’t Look Back in Anger by Oasis
The piano intro borrows openly from Imagine and the guitar carries the rest, mostly through open chords in C with a few moves that push a beginner slightly past the basics. The Am to E7 turn in the chorus is the one worth drilling.
Noel’s solo is short and melodic, and completely playable by an intermediate player, which is rarer than it should be. The album came out in October 1995 and this went to single in February 1996.
Don’t Look Back in Anger Guitar Chords
Song 2 by Blur
Two minutes long, four chords, and one of the loudest guitar tones of the decade. Graham Coxon’s part is almost aggressively simple, which is exactly why it works as an early distortion song. The interest sits in the fuzz and the attack rather than in any fingering.
What a learner gets here is a demonstration of how far a very basic part travels with the right sound behind it. Released April 1997.
Common People by Pulp
Britpop that runs on momentum rather than complexity. The chord loop underneath is basic and repeats for the whole song, building by adding instruments and volume instead of by changing harmony. For a guitarist this is a study in patience and consistent strumming across five minutes without drifting off the tempo.
The payoff is one of the biggest choruses of the era. Suitable for a beginner who can already change chords cleanly under time pressure. Released May 1995.
Basket Case by Green Day
Tuned a half step down, and plenty of people wonder why their version sounds slightly wrong until they find that out. The song is fast power chords with a clean arpeggiated intro, and the intro is the part worth slowing right down for. Speed is the whole difficulty after that.
Billie Joe’s downstrokes are relentless and your forearm will complain long before your fretting hand does. Build it up gradually. From Dookie in February 1994.
Self Esteem by The Offspring
The riff is a handful of power chords in a repeating pattern and a determined beginner can have it inside a session. What makes it worth including is the arrangement, which drops to almost nothing and then slams back, so you get practice at controlling volume with your hands instead of a pedal.
Noodles keeps the palm muting tight through the verses and that is the detail to copy. Smash came out in April 1994 and this was pulled as a single the following February.
Dammit by blink 182
Four chords on repeat and one of the most recognisable intros in pop punk, played high on the neck rather than as open shapes. That position is the small hurdle for a beginner, since the shapes are easy but the reaching is unfamiliar. Fast downstrokes carry the rest of it.
Tom DeLonge’s part barely changes across the song, so once you have the pattern you have the whole thing. Standard tuning. From Dude Ranch in 1997.
Say It Ain’t So by Weezer
The clean verse is a slow reggae inflected figure with muted upstrokes and it is the most instructive part of the song. You are learning to play quietly and precisely before anything loud happens. When the chorus arrives the same shapes return as heavy power chords, which shows a learner exactly how arrangement rather than new notes creates a hook.
Rivers Cuomo’s solo is melodic and within reach. Check the tuning against the record before you commit, because transcriptions disagree.
Interstate Love Song by Stone Temple Pilots
Dean DeLeo’s intro is a lovely piece of writing, a descending line played against ringing open strings that sounds far harder than it turns out to be once your fingers find the shape. The main groove is a straight rock feel with a country lean. This suits an intermediate player who wants something with taste rather than aggression.
The solo is short and stays melodic. From Purple in June 1994, and one of the better constructed rock singles of the decade.
Interstate Love Song Guitar Tabs
Iris by The Goo Goo Dolls
John Rzeznik tuned to something unusual here, with the top five strings all at D and the sixth at B, which is why every attempt to play it in standard sounds thin. In that tuning the whole song becomes a few simple fingerings that ring enormously. Retuning is the work.
Once you are there it is a beginner song. Most chord sheets online give a standard tuning approximation instead, so decide which version you actually want before you start.
Cliffs of Dover by Eric Johnson
The hardest thing on this list by a wide margin. An instrumental that has become a benchmark for clean legato playing, and the unaccompanied intro is improvised in feel and rarely played the same way twice, which makes it awkward to learn from any transcription. The main theme runs through fast cascading patterns that need precise left hand muting or the whole thing turns to noise.
Standard tuning, which is somehow more discouraging rather than less. Released on Ah Via Musicom in early 1990.
Sabotage by Beastie Boys
One fuzzed riff, hammered for three minutes, and enormously satisfying to play. Ad Rock’s part is a short low string figure a beginner can learn in twenty minutes, which makes it a good early confidence song. The difficulty is holding the intensity without speeding up, because the track has no dynamic relief to hide inside.
Standard tuning. Released May 1994 from Ill Communication, and proof that a great rock riff does not have to come from a rock band.
Loser by Beck
Built on a slide part in open D over an acoustic loop, which makes it an unusual way into slide playing for anyone curious about the technique. You need a slide and a willingness to sound bad for a week. The chords underneath are simple and can be played straight if you would rather skip the slide entirely.
Beck put it out independently in March 1993 before it became inescapable. The value here is exposure to something most rock learners never touch.
Santeria by Sublime
Standard tuning and deceptively relaxed. The rhythm part is a ska upstroke pattern that asks your strumming hand to stay in constant motion while only connecting on the offbeats, which is genuinely hard to sustain and is the real lesson in the song.
The solo is short and melodic, one of the friendlier lead parts of the decade for an intermediate player to take note for note. From the self titled album in July 1996, with the single following in January 1997.
Where to go next
The site has decade pages either side of this one: the 1970s and the 1980s, plus the 1960s and the 1950s further back.
And keep playing, badly at first and then less badly. That is the whole method.
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