If I'm doing it chronologically, The Beatles have to be the first for me as my parents played them all the time and I still fairly regularly listen to Revolver and Abbey Road amongst others. On the influence of my older brother, I was exposed to Blur and Oasis and loved them in my late primary school years.

I got really interested in Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Iron Maiden in early secondary school before becoming madly obsessed with The Offspring, Green Day and blink-182. While I don't listen to any material from these three bands prior to mid 2000s, some of the earlier albums I still enjoy greatly. I'd go as far to say blink-182's "Dude Ranch" from 1997 would sit comfortably in my 10 favourite albums. It's raw and riffy instead of the glossy polished pop of the following albums.

Around the later years of secondary school, I was very into the UK post-hardcore bands Reuben and Engerica who are both sadly no more.

There were piles of other bands I was into in this same timeframe but I have tried to select the more significant ones which have influenced my musical taste - something which has diversified immensely in the last 15 years.

Edited by BitterJalapeno - 06 Jul 2021 at 4:18pm

I'm going to gloss over my formative years trying to find 'my music' and just focus on when it started for real: heavy rock and metal. 

Ah, I have to add one more as the OP asked "bands" and I mentioned Metallica twice... It can be Iron Maiden - A Real Live One. It should seem interesting or weird that I got into Iron Maiden after Bruce Dickinson's solo career. It really happened that way...

Edited by Bosh66 - 12 Nov 2020 at 3:34pm

Black Sabbath - my first metal band, still a big fan
Ozzy Ozbourne - I was totally crazy about the Madman when I was a teen, but I'm not a big fan since ages. Sabbath stood better the test of time, even the recent solo albums aren't my cup of tea

In a roughly chronological order, it'd go like this:

The Offspring: I didn't get into rock music until my mid teens, this was the first band I latched onto with their Americana album. I still have time for them and their albums get the occassional spin.

Limp Bizkit: Don't hurt me, this was but a brief relationship! Chocolate Starfish was getting played everywhere and I somehow got onto the bandwagon, but jumped off fairly sharpish.

Korn: Absolutely fell in love with the self titled album, the enjoyment continued through Life Is Peacy but by Follow the Leader (despite excellent Todd Macfarlane sleeve art) I hit a bit of a wall. It felt uninspired and bitty and I drifted away from them.

Slipknot: I was hooked on Iowa for a while, the most intense stuff I'd ever heard at that point was Korn so this was quite an awakening.

Morbid Angel: Back in the days of Kazaa lite, I heard of this term "death metal" and wondered what it was, so I typed it in and clicked on the first song that grabbed my eye. Turned out to be "Fall From Grace" from the incredible Blessed Are the Sick. The rest is history.

Sepultura: Arise changed my life and taste forever. I asked a metalhead friend online who was disappointed at my taste to give me a list of recommendations. This was the first I went and bought on the strength of the artwork. Never looked back, my metal initiation truly complete.

Pantera: Also on that list was the band's heaviest album, The Great Southern Trendkill which has a unique place in their discog, and in my listening of them. Very intrigued at this one, anger, uncontrollable instruments and a touch of atmosphere in places.

Living Sacrifice: Their Reborn album sits snugly between the Seps and Pantera, kind of like Chaos AD in approach. Not a great fan but this album still holds enjoyment.

Gamma Ray: In the early days of my love of metal, I sometimes bought albums on the strength of the cover alone, this was one of the first ones. I walked into a local branch of a chain called MVC, and found the No World Order (the latest at the time) on the recommends shelf of the metal section, wondering what the hell power metal was and really hooked on that cover. It was a very interesting afternoon following putting it in my player. Very different to what I was used to, but I was converted alright.

Metallica/Guns n' Roses: The only thing these two have in common is I bought Appetite for Destruction along with Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets together on a frosty boxing day, 2001. These bands already were known to me fairly well due to my sister loving them in the late 80s/early 90s, I simply had to see what the fuss was about. Those Metallicas took a few listens to get my head around, but it was more than worth it, they're probably my most played albums ever.

I only really remember a couple; Tool (my favorite band in the history of the fuckin' universe and the band that got me into music in general), and Nirvana (which were more alt. rock).

Edited by Doomster - 17 Nov 2012 at 2:09pm

VERY hard to choose my top 10 that got me into the music but heres a rough list of them: