"When the so-called grunge revolution hit in the early '90s, it brought a backlash against shredding. Seemingly overnight, it became fashionable to make fun of guys like Eddie Van Halen, who, at 23, single-handedly launched a musical movement, while extolling the virtues of the Kurt Cobains. Granted, it could be argued that the whole tapping/whammy bar/shred thing started to become gratuitous and perhaps even cartoonish by the end of the '80s. Guitarists became divided over feel vs. technique, and those in the former camp would pillory anyone from Michael Angelo Batio to Steve Lukather, accusing them of having no passion or emotion in their playing."