yes....Eddie Van Halen does shred...like hell he does. but i dont think that all 80s bands were based solely on Eddie Van Halen himself. 80's bands ARE awesome and they DID shred. but everyone is subjected to their own opinion. yeah sure 80's bands did steal some tricks from Eddie. but i think that most of the bands stole their "stuff" from Clapton....not Eddie. Eddie did learn quite a bit from Clapton also. Eddie does have a totally awesome way of handling his guitars. He shreds. but 80s bands werent copying eddie. they learned from him. and as a rocker, you shouldnt have the balls to say that Eminem, out of all people, is an awesome artist. sure he's the only white person that knows how to rap but come on now. a true rocker sticks to his guns. the crap i hear on the radio today makes my ears bleed. even metallica's new stuff sucks. Eddie is not the only one who played how he felt. other artists may have copied other artists guitar work but when another guitarist tries to copy the other guitarist it never sounds like anything near the original. the artists copy other artists work but soon they play it so much and make changes to it that it becomes their own work. it may still sound like another artists' work but it has their own twist and their own personality added on to it. again, 80s guitarists do NOT suck. they did not copy eddie. saying that everyone copied from eddie is a bold thing to say. because in the end, you realize that everyone copied from someone. a lot of 80's bands got their material from older bands, whether from the 60's or 70's. and if you read the papers, you dont hear them all saying "oh we got our stuff from eddie" you hear them talkin bout how they tried to get a sound like their favorite artists. while eddie van halen is one of the most awesome guitar shredders, he is not everyone's idol.