C - D - G - Em
In my minimal attempts to learn guitar over the years, these are the only chords that have stuck with me. They're easy to play, and they sound good together. You can mix those up pretty much any way and write a simple pop song.
Recently, I was perusing some guitar tabs online, even though I can't really play guitar (I look for easy stuff). I came across the tab for Coldplay's "Viva La Vida", their recent smash-hit that has been the subject of recent lawsuits by overrated guitarists (Joe Satriani) and a has-been looking for newfound credibility (Cat Stevens, aka Yusef Islam), as well as thousands of dumbass ditto-heads that cry "did you hear about how Coldplay ripped off so-and-so? It's so obvious..."
What's funny is that I don't even like Coldplay, yet I can't help but have to constantly come to their defense on this. If the song wasn't a smash hit, you wouldn't have heard anything about this - all Joe Satriani and Cat Stevens are looking for is a cut of the big money pie that is "Viva La Vida", without having to do anything except claim to have written a passing resemblence to the melody many years ago . There are only a finite amount of melodies and chord combinations that sound good together in pop music - such as C D G Em, which is the chord progression of "Viva La Vida" (with a capo on the first fret) - which are the only chords I know.
Where's my cut?
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