Wow, does shredding gets put down here! Imagine the people who put hours of each day into practicing shreddor stuff, and then they read THIS.
Shredding has got its uses. There are some shreddors who are melodic too.
First, theres FunTwo, I'm sure a lot of you have heard of him.
Theres also Akio Shimizu, a Japanese guitarist who shreds some, and I actually like it a bit.
Heres some links: (probably previously posted, but it proves my point)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjA5faZF1A8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXX_fEMf6Pg
The second you have to wait for about a minute before he actually starts playing some (subjectively) good stuff.
It all comes down to taste I suppose, but there are probably plenty of excellent melodic and musically (not just technically) talented shreddors out there. Theres nothing wrong with liking that sort of thing.
Some other names that come to mind are Eddie van Halen, Kirk Hammet, Dimebag...
Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it.
-John Lennon