Which chart-toppers do new guitarists want to learn? Of the 218 No. 1 hits since 2004 in our test set, 178 get monthly US searches for "[song] guitar chords". Adele's "Someone Like You" leads by a distance (~5,000/mo), followed by "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" (~2,456), "Hey There Delilah" (~2,225) and "Perfect". The beginner canon is a list of slow, four-chord songs, and many are 10–20 years old. Recent entries, such as "Choosin' Texas", show country is feeding the next wave of learners.
Top 20 No. 1s by US "[song] guitar chords" searches
| # | Song | Artist | First No. 1 | Chord searches/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Someone Like You | Adele | 2011 | 5,000 |
| 2 | Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree | Brenda Lee | 2023 | 2,456 |
| 3 | Hey There Delilah | Plain White T's | 2007 | 2,225 |
| 4 | Perfect | Ed Sheeran and Beyoncé | 2017 | 2,025 |
| 5 | Hey Ya! | OutKast | 2004 | 1,725 |
| 6 | All of Me | John Legend | 2014 | 1,308 |
| 7 | Viva la Vida | Coldplay | 2008 | 1,280 |
| 8 | Choosin' Texas | Ella Langley | 2026 | 1,199 |
| 9 | Golden | Huntrix: Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami | 2025 | 909 |
| 10 | All Too Well (Taylor's Version) | Taylor Swift | 2021 | 833 |
| 11 | Shallow | Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper | 2019 | 822 |
| 12 | When I Was Your Man | Bruno Mars | 2013 | 809 |
| 13 | Call Me Maybe | Carly Rae Jepsen | 2012 | 800 |
| 14 | Love Yourself | Justin Bieber | 2016 | 777 |
| 15 | Die with a Smile | Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars | 2025 | 678 |
| 16 | All I Want for Christmas Is You | Mariah Carey | 2019 | 634 |
| 17 | We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together | Taylor Swift | 2012 | 579 |
| 18 | Rude | Magic! | 2014 | 557 |
| 19 | Just the Way You Are | Bruno Mars | 2010 | 516 |
| 20 | Drop Dead | Olivia Rodrigo | 2026 | 418 |
By chart era
| Era | Songs with demand | Median/mo | Total/mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2004–09 | 39 | 23 | 6,795 |
| 2010–15 | 49 | 29 | 12,210 |
| 2016–20 | 39 | 14 | 6,255 |
| 2021–26 | 51 | 61 | 10,354 |
What it means
Streams and searches measure different kinds of attention, and both start with a song worth finding. Anyone learning by ear can sketch a melody with a piano song maker. If you have a hook of your own, an AI song generator can turn it into a full track with vocals in a few minutes.
Method
- US Google search volume (English), monthly, Oct 2022–Sep 2026. 'Avg/mo' = mean of the latest 12 months (Oct 2025–Sep 2026); '3-yr change' = latest 12 months vs Oct 2022–Sep 2023.
- Universe: the 295 distinct Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 songs, Jan 2004–2026 (Billboard list), cleaned title.
- Ambiguous titles (common words or titles that collide with products/brands, e.g. "Umbrella cover", "Happy karaoke") were excluded per query type.
- Seasonal Christmas songs (e.g. "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree") are included; their value is a 12-month average of a December spike.
Cite and download
Free to use and cite with a link back to this page.
aisong.lol Research. (2026). America's beginner guitar canon — the songs searched to learn for 10 years. aisong.lol. https://aisong.lol/research/americas-beginner-guitar-canon-the-songs-searched-to-learn-for-10-year
Use this data. Every table in this study as one spreadsheet-ready file.
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