the first real “shred” I heard was when I was almost 17 (woulda been 1984) and my mom was out of town and some friends came over with some beer and they brought some records over. I heard VH 1 and it blew my mind. I heard Eruption and had no idea what it was lol. We all loved the intro to Aint Talkin 'Bout Love. That was 4 years before I started playing guitar. I was one of those types that thought id never be able to play guitar and that it was for others but not me.
So I was a big VH fan and I thought that was what good music was. I got my first guitar in '88 when I was 20. In those days you could get records, CDs, or cassettes. I almost always got cassettes so I could play them in the car and so I could make compilation cassettes
In either late 86 or 87 a friend of mine told me to listen to this CD of some supposed great guitar player. I had never heard of the dude and the music was all weird sounding. Sounded like some kind of opera. It was Yngwie Malmsteen Trilogy lol. I wasnt quite ready for it yet
I started buying guitar magazines maybe in dec 87 then bought my first guitar in jan 88. Young folks gotta remember this was WAAAAAAYYYY before the internet lol. That magazine was IT as far as guitar info. So I would usually buy whatever I saw mentioned a lot in the mags and usually it was when they had tab for a song or reviewed a record
not sure the exact order but these are the actual shred albums I had back then:
Satriani Surfing with the Alien CD. one of the first guitar CDs I got. blew my mind
Yngwie M Rising Force CD
Racer X Street Lethal CD
Vinnie Moore Time Odyssey cassette, player it until all the writing wore off the cassette
Greg Howe first album cassette
A bit later I got:
Yngwie Odyssey cassette
Yngwie Eclipse cassette
Vai Passion and Warfare
Nitro OFR cassette lol. This was sort of a joke to me. awesome playing but a bit too much cheese
Holdsworth Heavy Metal Fatigue and IOU cassette. Hard for me to listen to since I liked pop song structures etc
Frank Gambale Thunder from Down Under cassette - see above note lol
those were the main actual shred albums I remember
Also during that time I was heavily into these bands:
Blue Murder. Have probably listened to their first CD more than ANY other album. got it in the car right now
Michael Schenker/UFO, Hendrix, Trower, Whitesnake, Tesla, Skid Row, Extreme, The Cult, BulletBoys, Badlands, Ozzy, Scorpions, Judas Priest, Dokken, Lynch Mob
Obviously I started playing right at the peak of “hair metal” so thats what I liked
It took a few years but I finally dug back and really got into Led Zep
here I am now, 51 yrs old, I have a 30 min commute to work so I bought some CDs for the car. Kinda funny how tastes dont change. here is my main rotation:
Van Halen. I have the 6 pack of Roth Cds. VH2 is the absolute peak for me
Blue Murder first CD. pure classic. John Sykes is the BEST combo singer/writer/lead player
Ozzy Diary and Blizzard
Whitesnake Greatest Hits
Yngwie Odyssey. I like it but wish I had bought either Eclipse or Fire and Ice
RacerX Street Lethal lol
Creed
STP
at home on Mp3 I listen to tons of Yngwie. Listening to a lot of Greg Howe lately