Shred guitar or shredding is a lead playing style for the electric guitar, based on various fast soloing techniques. Critics have stated that shred guitar is associated with “sweep-picked arpeggios, diminished and harmonic minor scales, finger-tapping and whammy-barabuse”, while other guitar writers say that rather than being a musical definition, it is a fairly subjective cultural term used by guitarists and enthusiasts of guitar music.

It is usually used with reference to heavy metal guitar playing, where it is associated with rapid tappingsolos and special effects such as whammy bar “dive bombs”. The term is sometimes used with reference to playing outside this idiom, particularly bluegrass, country, jazz fusion and blues. (SOURCE: WIKI – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shred_guitar)
Shred guitar was most prominent in the 1980s in the heavy metal and “hair” metal genres. As for the “hair” metal bands,the most popular among them were Ratt, Dokken, Def Leppard, Poison, Mötley Crüe, Warrant, Whitesnake, Skid Row, Tesla, etc. “Hair” Metal is typically known for using shred guitar the most and often ridiculed because of its excessive use of mindless shredding and “whammy bar” abuse. As for the heavy metal bands that used shred guitar, the most popular were Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Queensryche, etc. After the 1980s, bands that used shred guitar techniques became almost non-existent. Later on in the 2000s bands started to use shred guitar techniques once again. (SOURCE: WIKI – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shred_guitar) Here are top 10 Shred solos of all time.