I grew up listening to the music of the 90s, where there was lots of variety in bands' sounds. For instance, just going as far as Canadian bands, there was The Tea Party, Barenaked Ladies, Moist, Our Lady Peace, Tragically Hip, Great Big Sea, Sloan, and Matthew Good Band, all of which had their own distinct sounds, to the point where you could play a non-single from any CD of theirs and people would instantly be able to tell you which band recorded the song. Then you pull in Metallica, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Guns 'n' Roses, Red Hot Chili Peppers, U2, Bon Jovi, all those non-Canadian bands, and the musical landscape got even more diverse.
Sadly, in the 2000s, most bands started sounding pretty much the same. Half the bands I listed had either folded or homogenized their sound to the general consensus, and between that and the new breed of bands, everyone basically sounded the same, because that's what the record companies wanted, because that's what was making money. I forget the name of the band/song and Google search is failing me, but there was a song released around 2005 with a lyric something like "we're not making art, this is a living" (if anyone knows the song, please post it). Basically, most music between 2001 and 2009 completely bored me, and I stuck with what I already had. There were exceptions, like Ayreon and The Dismemberment Plan, but for the most part everything sounded basically the same.
Right now there are a few bands making their name with original sounding music, and those are the ones I care about. Evanescence took inspiration from Nightwish, who now takes inspiration from Evanescence in return apparently, and I started listening to Evanescence long before Fallen hit shelves. I'm big on Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker as well, and I'm hoping Kings of Leon go big places.
Basically, the rock music I like to listen to is the rock music that stands out as not being part of the herd.
