I am heavily into late 60's/early 70's hard rock/heavy rock/progressive/psychedelic/hippy folk kinds of Music .It was a chance remark that someone made in 1984 that got me so interested in music.(At the time I was listening to a lot of the "usual" sixties/seventies music like the Doors, Cream, Hendrix, Leonard Cohen, Led Zeppelin, Free, Fleetwood Mac etc and someone remarked that there "must be a lot of other great music all over the world from the same era that is just not known")

My LP/CD/TAPE Collection here in the US

Some definitions from around the web of the types of music that I like.

HARD ROCK (from Wikipedia)

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that emerged as a defined musical style in the 1970s, having its roots in hard rock bands which, between 1969 and 1974,^[1] mixed blues and rock music to create a hybrid with a thick, heavy, guitar-and-drums-centered sound, characterised by the use of highly-amplified distortion.

Out of heavy metal various subgenres later evolved, many of which are referred to simply as "metal." As a result, "heavy metal" now has two distinct meanings: either the genre and all of its subgenres, or the original heavy metal bands of the 1970s style sometimes dubbed "traditional metal", as exemplified by Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin.

Heavy metal began gaining popularity in the 1970s and 1980s, at which time many of the now existing subgenres first evolved. Heavy metal has a large world-wide following of fans known by terms such as "metalheads" and "headbangers".

Progressive rock: In rock, the word usually describes music that expands traditional musical structures by adopting influences of jazz, symphonic, folk and world music. Progressive rock artists often string together the songs so that the entire album will become an uninterrupted musical "journey". Long tracks that can be divided into separate movements, all with its own place in the overarching theme of the song, are very common in progressive. An important aspect of progressive rock is the juxtaposition of contrast elements such as the raw, loud and fast with the calm and slow. Thus progressive rock not only tends to have strong melodic elements, but also expands the harmonic margin of rock music by utilizing atonal patterns from modern classical music as well as advanced chords from jazz theory. Progressive rock's popularity peaked in the early to mid 1970s with bands such as the "big four" consisting of Yes, Genesis, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and King Crimson. Many of these bands had their origins in the 1960s art schools of Britain.

Foremost, a music that tries to replicate the drug-altered state of consciousness produced by drugs. Therefore the sound is often experimental (for the period), or borrows from other influences, mainly Middle Eastern music. Fuzzy, distorted, mind-melting guitars, sitars, tempo changes, long guitar solos, ethereal organ, feedbacks and other various special effects, all serve to create a trippy sound. The lyrics can be as weird as the music. They usually address the psychological state of mind of the "trippers", tell strange stories, or reflect the social concerns of the time. There is maybe more abuse with the term "psychedelic" than with any other in music. Everything from cheesy pop, to spacy melodies then becomes psychedelic. For many, only the sound produced from about 1966 (or 1967) to the beginning of the 1970s is worthy of the name. Progressive rock also produces some "psychedelic" music, often long epics with a sound usually quite different from the 60s.

Here is a description I saw on the alt.music guide:

Psychedelic rock emerged in the mid-'60s, as British Invasion and folk-rock bands began expanding the sonic possibilities of their music. Instead of confining themselves to the brief, concise verse-chorus-verse patterns of rock & roll, they moved toward more free-form, fluid song structures. Just as important -- if not more so -- the groups began incorporating elements of Indian and Eastern music and free-form jazz to their sound, as well as experimenting with electronically altering instruments and voices within the recording studio. Initially, around 1965 and 1966, bands like the Yardbirds and the Byrds broke down the boundaries for psychedelia, creating swirling layers of fuzz-toned guitars, sitars, and chanted vocals. Soon, numerous groups followed their pattern, including the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, both of whom recorded psychedelia in 1966. In no time, groups on both sides of the Atlantic embraced the possibilities of the new genre, and the differences were notable. In Britain, psychedelia tended to be whimsical and surrealistic. Nevertheless, bands -- most notably Pink Floyd and Traffic -- played extended instrumentals that relied on improvisation as much as their American contemporaries the Grateful Dead, the Doors, Love, and Jefferson Airplane. In other corners of America, garage bands began playing psychedelic rock without abandoning their raw, amateurish foundation of three-chord rock -- they just layered in layers of distortion, feedback, and effects. Eventually, psychedelic evolved into acid rock, heavy metal, and art rock, but there continued to be revivals of psychedelia in the decades that followed, most notably in the American underground of the mid-'80s.

Below are some music links. Enjoy!