My musical tastes started with listening to classic rock on the radio ALL THE TIME when I was a kid, from about 8 till around 12. Linkin Park was introduced to me at age 10 and I of course loved it, but I never bought the CDs. When I was 12 I discovered such music as My Chemical Romance, and I bought all their CDs and such. I didn't really listen to anything else because I didn't own an iPod or many more CDs, and I relied on my dad's immense collection of music, which was mostly very calm stuff.
Anyway I got into a few other bands, namely Fall Out Boy and Sum 41, and I often listened to them. I also got into The Killers at age 13, and I love them to this day. By now of course I listened to other things than this, but these were the big ones.
Also at around age 13, or the year 2007, the year Guitar Hero 3 came out. This, more than anything, was the game that introduced me to more artists than anything else, including Metallica. I went out and bought And Justice For All and I...I just couldn't get into it. I think that at that time I was expecting something heavier, and I didn't understand the time signature changes. Anyway I just didn't really listen to the CD.
Pick up at the end of 2008. Death Magnetic comes out, and I wanted to pick it up because I had heard that it was good. I did...I absolutely loved it. The next month I was in Disney World, and I bought Master of Puppets, which I liked even better. I had been stupid and left Justice at my house, but when I got back, I relistened to it, and it finally clicked...
So Metallica was my first metal love. I started taking guitar and learned much of their material, and my stoner guitar teacher introduced me to Megadeth, Pantera, Avenged Sevenfold (who I wouldn't learn to
truely appreciate until last year), and other things. I was into a lot of the old school thrash and nothing really else. I especially hated metalcore, or what I thought was metalcore at the time.
Anyway, time passed by, I started hating a lot of the older things I had listened to. Then around the middle of 2009, I discovered Nine Inch Nails. This was the band that truely exploded my interest in music to sky highs. They led me to Fear Factory, which led me to other bands. At the same time my friends were introducing me to a lot of non-metal stuff, and the combination of interests just lead to discovering band after band after band...
So now at age 16 I would say that I'm less a fan of the thrash stuff (although I still love it to death). I listen to a huge assortment of things but the main ones are metalcore/post-hardcore bands and progressive ones, as well as an assortment of non-mainstream pop and rediscovering bands from earlier this decade that I had missed. My favorite band at the moment is Periphery.
I don't know if my tastes will change to exclude metal in the future, but I certainly hope not. That shit is dope
I'll probably mellow out if I'm not part of a metal band myself (no one where I live can play double bass worth a shit...), but I doubt I'll grow out of it. I look forward to what the next few years brings to the genre.