I can't believe it's taken me this long to chime in here.
If you really want to go back to when I started to get into music, it was junior high and firmly the era of classic rock. the first album I ever bought was the first Boston record. Led Zeppelin was a favorite, and in junior high/high school, my friends and I were all into Styx, Rush, Pink Floyd, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, etc. And naturally we loved all the standards from previous decades like the Beatles, the Kinks, and the Stones. My BFF and I were also fans of a lot of the prog rock stuff -- Yes, King Crimsom, Asia (RIP John Wetton), etc.
As high school went on, I got more into David Bowie, the Police, Pretenders, Talking Heads, Psychedelic Furs, and the like. I always liked stuff that was a bit quirky. Thus, the stage was set for discovering even more "unusual" music in college, so when I wandered into the campus radio station one day, that turned out to be an event that would actually change my life. It led to so much -- making friends I cherish to this day, challenging my self-image as a "shy" person by going on the air as a DJ, and opening up career paths that I had never imagined before. And the music! Oh, how much fun it was to discover the alternatives to standard rock and top 40 radio. Stuff that I started to learn about in high school really sunk in. So many bands that you all have mentioned -- some I was shocked to see that anyone else remembered (Propaganda!?! I still have that on vinyl in my basement!). REM, Roxy Music, Pixies, Tears for Fears, New Order, the Cure, the Smiths, Sex Pistols, Ramones, the Jam, the Clash, Simple Minds, Kate Bush, Lene Lovich, X, XTC, Brian Eno, David Sylvian, Dumptruck, Dream Syndicate, Mazzy Star, Elvis Costello, the Feelies, Gang of Four, Iggy Pop, Kirsty McColl (still heartbroken over her death), Laurie Anderson, Love & Rockets, Bauhaus, Marti Jones, Maria McKee, B-52s, Replacements, Siouxsie, Echo & the Bunnymen, The The, Yo La Tengo...
I still enjoy listening to all of that, but I've kept up with indie/alternative music ever since, so I'm a fan of a lot of stuff that came after that, and a lot of current music as well. I listen to Sirius XMU a lot, but I also like alt-country and Americana, good old soul and funk, real authentic country like Johnny Cash, and anything you can dance to.
More contemporary favorites include Tune-Yards, Courtney Barnett, Deerhunter, Future Islands, Cloud Nothings, St Vincent, Sylvan Esso, Tame Impala, PJ Harvey, Neko Case, Old 97s, Kurt Vile, Spoon, Foals, Maggie Rogers, Rogue Wave, Santigold, Foxygen, etc...
And then there are the bands from the intervening years I can almost always listen to: Soul Coughing, Guided By Voices, Folk Implosion/ Sebadoh, Gomez, Big Star, Modest Mouse.... I can go on and on.
I wrote a novel. Sheesh! Can you tell
I get into this??