Your Music Evolution

Metallica

This is where it all started for me, too. The black album was the first CD I ever bought, back when I was ten years old or so. I quickly started to explore their older stuff, which I also loved. Metallica was the first band I saw live, as well. I loved the guitar solos, and quickly sought more music with the same energy and riffage, which led me to:

Iron Maiden

Due to the influence of my older brother and the music I would hear him listening to, I started to get into NWOBHM stuff. Still one of my favorite bands to this day. The solos, the galloping riffs, the wailing. It was all perfect. I listened to them a LOT, and while I wanted more, I didn't know where else to find it. However, one day I stumbled across:

Iced Earth

I actually heard some of their stuff on an internet radio station in a class back in highschool once, and dug it. Through that, I discovered Demons and Wizards, which brought me to Blind Guardian. A whole new world opened up. I realized that music was still being released in places that weren't North America (this was before Iron Maiden got back together, and I sort of forgot that Europe existed). Luckily for me, there were lots of good bands still releasing things in Europe, like:

In Flames

Listening to their old stuff, along with that of Dark Tranquillity, Amorphis, and Children of Bodom, is what first got me into the growled vocals. I really didn't like it at first, but the instrumentality was just so good that I kept listening anyway. Eventually I stopped minding the vocals, and then eventually began to like them. They have a certain subtlety to them, ironically. Speaking of subtlety, you know a band is good when you've been listening to them for years and are still noticing new and interesting things they've done in their songs. For example:

Death

This was a huge one for me. Chuck was and is one of the greatest visionaries to ever pick up a guitar, and his memory lives on with all the bands drawing an influence from his music. I'd never listened to anything quite so technical before, which brought me to...

Cacophany

Along with Jason Becker's and Marty Friedman's solo stuff, Cacophany made me appreciate classical and technical guitar in a way I had never known before. Branching out to other like-minded musicians (Yngwie, Vai, etc).

At this point, I notice a problem that knk mentioned, being that this is way WAY too linear. Along the way after Metallica, I also got into Black Sabbath, another band that my brother listened to extensively. This led me to things like Van Halen, the Cult, and other classic rock acts. This more mellow side further chilled out as time went by, and got me into stuff like Sublime, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and lots of Spanish guitar. I could probably linearize everything, but right about now is the point where I started to get lazy, so that's all you get!

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Best metal singer ever = Eric Adams!

There's nowhere I can't reach.