Heh, my taste in music was definitely influenced by my parents, or rather my mother. She was an aerobics instructor in the 80's (nice visualize I'm sure is popping to mind, she didn't wear leg warmers, though, just a fuzzy headband) and always was a big music lover, so I was consequently subjected to tons of upbeat 80's music. This is one of the defining memories of my childhood, having to listen to the same albums over and over and over again while she choreographed her aerobics classes and being lectured about running around too much because it might scratch the record (kudos to anyone who knows what the hell I'm talking about).
Not that it's a bad thing, those are some of my favorite memories. Consequently, a lot of those songs have a lot of meaning to me and it's very easy to apply them to AMV concepts, whereas songs from the current decade are just kind of empty - except for a few I wish I'd never heard, they have no emotional strings attached (I know, I'm getting old).
I was also heavily influenced by my mother's love for folk music, so I'm a huge fan of Judy Collins, Peter, Paul & Mary, Pete Seeger, etc. Haven't attempted an AMV with them yet, though, I'm having too much fun screwing around with Advent Children and Top 40 hits from the 80's at the moment.