YOUR metal timeline

[Cargést]

Listening to the newer "true" underground metal like Mütiilation, Katharsis, Antaeus and the new Profanatica.

I would doubt the quality of all but the latter, in all honesty (as much as I like Mütiilation).

[David_Brent]

Listening to the newer "true" underground metal like Mütiilation, Katharsis, Antaeus and the new Profanatica.

I would doubt the quality of all but the latter, in all honesty (as much as I like Mütiilation).

I used to listen to Katharsis too, but they aren't my cup of Fristi anymore. The 2 first Mütiilations and the other 2 bands are great off course.

[Eelpop]

Around.. 2002-2003: Listened to my mum's music, e.g. Robbie Williams, country shit
2005 or so - Alt rock bands like Nirvana, SIlverchair, Powderfinger (Australian)
2007 - Melodic punk such as Rise Against
2008 - Cousin started getting me into some stuff like Metallica and Slayer. Always hated nu-metal and metalcore.
2009 - I know everything about thrash and listen to a lot of progressive stuff such as Dream Theater, Voivod, Vektor, Watchtower etc
Still scared of death metal.
2010 - Attempt to get into death metal and succeed. Started with Amon Amarth and other Gothenburg bands until I accepted bands like Death, Cryptopsy, Atheist, etc
Current - I have a very narrow taste in music and I don't know why.. Like some black metal, mostly prog/death stuff though.

[aquarius]

1986 fantasia
1998 (general mainstream radio metal)
2000 emperor, deicide
2001 darkthrone, mayhem, immortal

     (started reading dark legions archive reviews)

2002 burzum, kraftwerk, wagner

     (started playing keyboard and go for long walks in nature)
     
2003 neptune towers
2004 klaus schulze, tangerine dream, beherit
2005 biosphere, techno/trance
2006 industrial/EBM
2007 got internet and started exploring all history of metal and other obscure music

[lolmetal]

1997 - First CD: Busta Rhymes - When Disaster Strikes, also get into Notorious BIG, Beanie Sigel and others
1998 - Buy Korn - Follow the Leader. Listen to "urban" (rap & R&B) and modern rock radio (alternative & nu metal). Later get CDs by Linkin Park and Disturbed. I disowned numetal for a while, but now I can enjoy it a bit if its one of the select few I got into when I was younger. It's kind of irrelevant though cause I never actually do listen to it anymore.
2001 - Buy Slayer - God Hates Us All. A lot like Numetal, I can enjoy it but not as much. I was very intrigued at how blasphemous the lyrics were (I never thought of the concept before). While not Slayer's best album, this was far closer to legit metal than anything I had heard before.
2002 - First metal concert: Slayer
2003 - Around this time I got my own computer for college and file sharing let me obtain much more music than I could before. Up until now I had spent the past several years on no more than a dozen CDs and what the radio had for me. Naturally I began to explore various forms of metal mostly with the help of allmusic.com (good for beginners). It started with Metallica and Slayer as well as some old school stuff like Sabbath, Maiden, Priest. Saw Metallica live.
2004 - Got my first guitar for Xmas. Things were naturally progressing to death metal and grindcore, of course the "melodic" style such as In Flames at first. I still like this style but In Flames got progressively worse and there weren't very many bands outside of Dark Tranquillity that were even that good anyway. Of course, bands like Deicide and especially Morbid Angel, Suffocation etc. were really difficult and I couldn't stand it the first several listens but I eventually learned to love them. Also developing a taste for electronic/ambient music such as Aphex Twin, Autechre, Lustmord etc. First "melodic death metal" concert": In Flames. First death metal concert: Deicide
2005 - Went to my first Maryland Deathfest (lucky enough to be a local) and saw Cryptopsy play the entire "None So Vile" album. The landscape doesn't change much from here on out. I still mostly listen to metal more than anything else, along with ambient stuff. Occasionally I give a rap album a shot and often it's really good. I often wonder when I am going to meet the point of diminishing returns in terms of discovering new bands with metal. It always seems like it's right around the corner, yet I continue on. I wouldn't even mind if it happened because I never would have imagined how much great metal there is out there and how much I have enjoyed it over the years.
2009 - Play live for the first time doing guitar and vocals for a Metallica cover band, then again in 2010. It was really an amazing experience. These days I aspire to listen to more rap and classical. I'm not sure what I would do if I get tired of that, because I would probably force myself to listen to jazz and classic rock, so lets hope metal, ambient, classical and rap can last me a lifetime. I still play guitar and often think of writing original material. I guess I have high standards for myself though. I have been to 75 concerts and 95% were metal.

[consumedestroy]

1982 - Born
1982 - 1994 - Listened to whatever is around, without huge interest in finding what I really like.  Listening to things like The Beatles, and that stuff 50's and 60's radio stations play mostly.
1994 - Found Metallica, Black Sabbath, Danzig, Iron Maiden, and Black Sabbath on the radio and in friends collections.  Was interested.
1996 - Started listening to ARE YOU TALKIN TO ME?, Sepultura, and Metallica frequently.
1998 - Discovered Fear Factory and Six Feet Under.  Nealy abandoned the metal I'd been listening to.
1999 - Became obsessed with metal.  Continued with the bands listed above and slowly began to expand.
2000 - Heard Deicide's Isineratehymn, Cannibal Corpse's Gallery of Suicide, and Skinless' Foreshadowing Our Demise.  First exposure to Slayer.
2001 - Collected albums from the local stores with horrible selections.  Gathered albums from bands like Cradle of Filth, more Six Feet Under, and more Fear Factory.  Death metal was in scarce supply.
2002 - Had decided to stop looking for death metal and settled for metalcore bands and whatever else was readily available.
2003 - Drove to other cities in search of metal on a regular basis.  Brought home albums from many genres, bands like, Morbid Angel, Dimmu Borgir, Avenged Sevenfold, Unearth, Slayer, and The Black Dahlia Murder.
2004 - 2005 - Listening to metal almost nonstop now.  Undiscriminating at this point still, bringing home a wide gamut still like The Red Chord, Mastodon, Entombed, and Hypocrisy.
2005 -2006 Discovered brutal death metal.  Death metal diet began continuing with classics like Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, and SFU.  Expanded library to include bands like Exhumed, Dying Fetus, Aeon, and Behemoth.  Also began to investigate black metal.
2007 - 2010 - Feeding my death metal appetite has become a large part of my life now.  I listen to many different kinds of music, in cluding non-metal genres,  but death metal is what I always go back to.  To stick to the OP I'll throw out a few more metal bands that have kept me going every day for the last few years; Aborted, Cryptopsy, Averse Sefira, Kataklysm, Vader, Krisiun, Gorgoroth, Daath, Unexpect, Pink Frothy AIDS, Marduk, and a hundred other bands from many different metal genres keep me company every day.

[Tachäl Dhäl]

Hey, this is kinda fun (though I have to wonder why anyone would read this)

1983 - born and raised in the Seattle suburbs.
1980s - favorite songs were jingle bells and Beethoven's ode to joy (generally disliked and avoided music as a kid).
1992 - saw Nirvana on TV.  Didn't care.
1996 - learned everything I know about women from MTV Grind.
1997 - Listened to whatever the angry kids listened to (except fucking Limp Bizkit).  Manson, RATM, Tool, blah blah..
1998 - Decided I wanted to like punk rock, bought Cleopatra compilation, honestly did like some of it (Exploited, Blitz, GBH, etc.)
1998 - Heard Zeke live on a radio show hosted by Eddie Vedder of all people.  Decided I liked really, really fast music.  Somehow missed out on Slayer for years after that.
1999 - First concert happened to be the CD release for Botch's We are the Romans.  Kinda enjoyed it, but didn't really get what they were going for at the time.
2002 - Strangely got really social in high school.  Degenerated to crappy So. Cal. punk like NOFX, Pennywise, Operation Ivy, though I still like Bad Religion.  Started to ditch my punk rock "metal sux" attitude.  Bought And Justice for All.
2003 - Had a brief and misguided "dense and quirky" music phase.  Back to Botch, DEP, and better stuff like King Crimson.  Realized some death metal was "dense and quirky."  Started browsing ANUS, not because I was looking for ass.  Death metal clicked for me with Suffocation's Pierced from Within.  I should mention that I didn't have any friends into metal (or underground punk for that matter) until I was well into my 20s.  Music downloading didn't become a big part of life until right around 2003 either. 
2004 - After semi-failed attempts with Emperor and Darkthrone, black metal clicked big time with Burzum's Hvis Lyset Tar Oss.  Realized I preferred music that wasn't dense and quirky.  As with many leftists who encounter black metal and take it seriously, I found the move to eco-fascist surprizingly easy, then just really didn't care about politics.  I liked my world better (still do).
2005 - 2007 - Time spent in sexy French black metal castles.  Don't remember much, but I ended up with very long hair and a college degree.  Dabbled in classical, ambient, IDM, etc.  Standard anus rapsheet.
2008-present - Moved to Alaska, started new life. Got a real job (didn't sell out).  Finding new music not very important, but still enthusiastic about hessian music and worldview.
Near future - I think world travel's going to be my next big thing.  We'll see what that means for music.
Rest of life - Slowly unravel the mysteries of classical music.  It's a well of inspiration for when I really need it.

[Iconocloaca]

I listened to no music until I heard Slayer, then got into some shitty-but-not-too-pathetic-considering-shit-like-Korn-and-Slipknot, then got into death and black metal, and now I don't really listen to music at all.

I raised my standards so high that the music that I want does not exist.

[Athanasius contra mundum]

I listened to no music until I heard Slayer, then got into some shitty-but-not-too-pathetic-considering-shit-like-Korn-and-Slipknot, then got into death and black metal, and now I don't really listen to music at all.

I raised my standards so high that the music that I want does not exist.

Lol me too dude can't believe I let that happen lololololol.

[reasonable]

1984 - Born

1993 - Discovered "metal." That is to say, I heard songs from Metallica's Black album on the radio and saw their videos on MTV.

1994 - Obtained all of Metallica's 80s material on cassette. Developed an obsession with the band. Started learning how to play guitar. Got into Megadeth later in the year.

1995/96 - Started getting into some death metal and various other things. Discovered black metal. Obtained albums by Morbid Angel, Napalm Death, Slayer, Paradise Lost, Celtic Frost, Dismember, Sabbat (UK), Mayhem, and the At Death's Door comp. Looking back, I had some pretty cool tapes and was getting into some pretty serious stuff at a pretty young age. Unfortunately, during the summer of '96 I got into 90s-era Sepultura (I owned Chaos A.D. and even the execrable Roots album) and ARE YOU TALKIN TO ME? (hey, I was really young.) Metal Maniacs was a really important thing for me around this time. It was pretty good for a mainstream publication (Jeff Wagner was largely responsible for whatever quality it had) and it kept me pretty well on track during those days. I owned every issue from '96 and '97. This was pre-internet for me (I didn't have a computer until 2003.) Finding music back then was harder but more exciting in a way.

1997 - Discovered Emperor through the Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk album. People were freaking out about this album back when it came out and so was I at that age. It is largely responsible for making black metal my favorite genre. There is still a soft spot in my heart for that album. Around this time I started having serious misgivings about things around me and became rather alienated. I went deeper into metal and reading. I had already started reading about occult subjects in 6th grade, and at this time I was reading a lot about various forms of political extremism. Nobody else cared about anything besides hanging out at the mall and fitting in to the social pecking order. I guess I was a weird kid. Underground metal was something very important in my private little universe at this time.

1998-99 - Started getting into some hardcore, both of the 80s variety and the 90s Victory Records variety (Victory Records was pretty decent back then!!) Discovered Iron Maiden. They became one of my favorite bands.

2000 - Started drifting away from extreme music and got more into Iron Maiden, Helloween, and ummm...Yngwie Malmsteen. At this time I was obsessed with learning how to "shred." I would sit in my room for hours practicing scales, arpeggios and whatnot on my guitar. I don't use those skills to shred anymore, but it was beneficial in that it gave me more of a command over my instrument, so that I don't feel very limited technically if something I want to express requires difficult playing. Through listening to Yngwie Malmsteen and reading interviews with him, I became more aware of classical music. I got deeply into music from the Baroque and Classical periods at this time. I read all about Bach and Mozart in particular and became familiar with their compositional techniques. I taught myself music theory at this time and started learning classical guitar. I took lessons from a very talented guy who was going to college for classical guitar. I was pretty serious about this stuff at the time. All of this stuff had a lasting effect on the way I play guitar and write metal music.

2001-02 - During my junior and senior years of high school I started getting back into extreme metal pretty heavily and bought a lot of CDs at this time because I started working regularly (manual labor, mostly, which is a pain in the ass but it toughened me up). I rediscovered my love for Emperor and listened to In the Nightside Eclipse a lot during this time. It is still one of my favorite albums and is extremely important to me. I also got into a quasi-joke metal band at this time. It was a joke in that the concepts were not serious but I did spend some serious time writing good riffs for this band. We didn't do much besides hang out, jam the 4 or 5 songs we had, and smoke a lot of pot.

2003 - Got a computer and got connected to the internets. This allowed me to get even deeper into death and black metal. Since that time I have been refining my tastes quite a bit and at this point I have a pretty solid conception of what I find valuable in metal music. I also joined a fairly serious metal band and played some gigs and recorded a bit of stuff. It wasn't exactly my idea of the best thing I could offer musically, but it was good to finally get in touch with some people that were just as obsessed with this stuff as I was. Those were pretty insane times, actually. I haven't felt that kind of comaraderie since that time in my life. We played for a couple years and I am still good friends with those people.

2004 - present - Basically just exploring things, looking for good albums that I missed back in the day and celebrating them. I'm also writing music again, this time according to my own vision. I hope to start a band within the next year. I basically just want to record a couple things that I can be proud of and that's it. Not looking for a metal career or anything.

[istaros]

birth-1997 or so: didn't care much about music, but gained a taste for techno stuff since it was popular in Spain at the time

1997-2001: still not enthralled with it, but a taste for it awakened; first musical memory is the soundtrack from Mechwarrior 2 and its Ghost Bear's Legacy expansion pack, which have stuck in my memory to this day, even without having heard them for years; after that, moved to Africa, didn't have much to choose from so I listened to songs by the Beatles and Blood, Sweat & Tears with high frequency; later acquired a few CDs of my own, but they were mostly shit(enjoyment of Creed is an eternal point of shame in my life)

2001: moved back to the USA, got online, found Dead Can Dance by a random and fortunate fluke; got back into techno shit as well, but Dead Can Dance is what made me understand how powerful music can be, and remains my most highly-regarded modern musical effort

2002-2005: begin to appreciate classical, usually turn the car radio off if I can't find it playing on some station; hear ambient music for the first time via a late-night program broadcast from the university station in El Paso, fall in love with (some of) it; start renting music from the local library branch; discover a few more things that ignite some level of interest(Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, ethnic musics); also take a "world music" class in college, through which I gain appreciation for Indian classical, while simultaneously coming to understand how easily the liberal collegiate mindset will embrace anything that even appears to be non-Western, as the class tried to hold modern Latin American/Caribbean genres like samba, bossa nova, and calypso in the same category as African tribal music and Imperial Japanese court music

2005-2007: a friend instills an ironic love for terrible glam bands; the fact these were called metal, even though far from being such, happily points my curiosity towards heavier things; start delving into Iron Maiden as well as more bad things such as "NWOAHM" and Gothenburg bands; at this stage I find any metal without solos to be too repetitive and droning, likely a holdover from when I got into glam bands, many of whom did actually have good guitar solos

2007-2009: hear about black metal, wonder just what the fuck it is, start looking into it; first interests contain a lot of crap as well, circus metal like Arcturus, while my natural predilection towards appearing unique drives my to avoid things that get too much praise, such as Ulver; also can't stand most death metal, but black metal(even of the more genuine variety) has heavily clicked; discover ANUS through an innocuous mention on the Wikipedia page for Vikingligr Veldi; develop an elitist mindset, but get somewhat carried away with it as well; become obsessed with knowing about as many genres as I can, minus a few obvious crapholes like emo and post-hardcore

2009-2010: realize how pointless it is to try to stay on top of multiple genres, as I have no desire to make a career as a reviewer; truly "get" death metal for the first time; also delve heavily into classical for the first time, but after a short while I realize I don't want to spend what will be easily over a year of my life simply coming to understand something to which I will never contribute, and satisfy myself with simply loving it instead; at the same time I realize that metal speaks much more clearly to me, and begin the process of understanding why; with almost the entirety of my musical explorations now focused on a very narrow swath of two specific genres(death metal and, more so, black metal), this process accelerates rapidly; tone down elitism (or false elitism) in the sense of knowing that my efforts would be better spent in increasing the good rather than decreasing the bad, as the good will not increase on its own, whereas shit will always decay into nothingness

late 2010-2011: get tired of having a section of powerful music stick in my head as I'm falling asleep, and clearly hearing in my head what developments I could make off of it(e.g. the solo that bursts forth from among the plodding density of riffs in Bathory's "Home of Once Brave"), and soon after that, get tired of having various musical ideas of my own without any means of expressing them or even keeping a record of them; begin the process of learning to play music; expect an album in about five years

[loam]

I'm grateful to the OP for starting this thread, as I had never actually put this into a coherent timeline before.

85 - Born
86-90 - Parents weren't into much music (nu-country and random "classic" rock), so listened to whatever passed me by. Shitty commercial rap, James Taylor and "darker" classical (Beethoven, Grieg, Wagner) still stand out amid the haze.
91-96 - Alternative radio shit (later REM, Smashing Pumpkins, etc) through friends.
97-99 - A cousin gave me Nine Inch Nails' "The Downward Spiral" and it blew my fucking mind. Reznor is a big baby but I still enjoy some of the things he did with sound on that album. I was already drawn to anything that appeared dark, heavy, or angry, but did not know where to look. Now that I had a starting point, I branched out blindly into Marilyn Manson, The Offspring, Limp Brisket, Korn, Tool, Rammstein and more garbage due to lack of guiding influence. I also started listening to Slayer and Metallica, Deicide and Morbid Angel.
00-03 - More Slayer. Found that I loved METAL. Got AIDS in the form of Cradle of Filth, later Carcass and At the Gates, "The Sound of Perseverance" and Cannibal Corpse. Discovered BNR metal pages and ANUS. Stabbed blindly into the metal realm from various recommendations and advertisements. Century Media defecated in my ears. Found black metal and grind.
04-07 - Spent listening to a slew of quality metal mixed with shit. Developed an "elitist" attitude toward music, ironically while listening to garbage such as Pink Frothy AIDS, Solefald, Ulver, and later Enslaved and Satyricon alongside the elite.
08-10 - Finally started to discern substance from style. Started listening to Kraftwerk, Autechre, King Crimson, Black Funeral, Ildjarn, Graveland, and Manowar (Hail, Cargést!).

[David_Ravel]

89 Born
95 Discovered Maiden and Mercyful Fate through family. + favorite band of my parents is Genesis, and my father a fan of Bach
97 Misfits, Slayer, punk, hardcore, etc.
01 Back to Metal, Manowar and other Heavy
03 Black Metal to the core
06 Return to thrash, death, etc.

Throw in there some classical or electronic discovery.

[TheDeathlyLama]

'86 Born
90 - 95 Parents listened to shitty Hair Metal, Ratt and Van Halen
95 discovered Slayer, Cannibal Corpse Through a friend
96 - 98 Listened mainly to these bands and had a brief run in with Marilyn Manson....
98 2004 punk/ Hard Core
2004 - Current Explored Jazz, Classical (still exploring some classical upon occasion) Random styles, Tech-Death,

[E]

86 Born [parents' music: anything made between '55 and '75 + some avantgarde classical]
91 Beatles [hipster phase]
95 Mainstream house, gabber
98 Metallica, Slayer
00 Various crap, e.g. L. Bizkit [quarantined]
02 Dimmu B., Prokofiev
03 Burzum, Graveland [ignored all who paved the way for them; still can't be arsed- it's always a step back]
06 [anal probe mk1]
07 Stravinsky, Bartók, Debussy. Also: Ildjarn
08 Beethoven, Schumann
09 Old Italians, medieval music
10 Suffocation, Deicide
11 Will continue exploring DM and Classical while seeing some more of my friends succumb to AIDS of the tympanic membrane :-)