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You have the right approach man. Fun.
Nothing will prepare you better for a lifetime of playing and sharing popular music than learning hundreds of songs as exactly as you can by listening to the recordings and sticking with the arrangements as they were recorded.
Now, before everyone jumps in saying how boring and unimaginative that is, consider this.
Knowing A LOT of songs as recorded gives you three distinct advantages.
1) You have done your due diligence and learned to play a song as intended by the author. Whether you know it or not, that has added a new "style" element to your playing arsenal. And the more songs you learn, the easier it becomes to learn.
2) Knowing a butt load of songs as recorded means that you can pull out your guitar anywhere in the world and people can participate. Whether they want to sing along, jam, of invite you to sit in at a gig, there are no surprises, trainwrecks or fumbling around.
3) Having played the songs alot, as recorded, makes it much easier for you to stray from the original version and then land on your feet again because, "you really know the song."
So, what I'm saying is, learn songs thoroughly, completely and always complete the original arrangement before moving on to variations of it. It's a great big world out there and you are far more likely to run across 1000's of people who know the original version as opposed to some hybrid rendition you and your buddies worked out. So much of music is about meeting on common ground. Once you're all on the same page, use your skills to take it somewhere else! And have fun!!!
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