I listen to good music of all genres, but my favorite genre is metal.

Lately I've been listening to Hypocrisy a lot.

With metal, I mostly listen to black, death and thrash metal

Slipknot, Rammstein, Machinemade God, Disturbed, Catharsis, Iron maiden, Ariya, Rhapsody of Fire, Mercenary, Muse, all good bands

my favorite style of metal is dsbm(depressive suicidal black metal)

Xasthur
YouTube - Xasthur - Prison Of Mirrors
Trist
YouTube - Trist - Hin
ColdWorld
YouTube - coldworld - This Empty Life
Austere
YouTube - Austere - This Dreadful Emptiness

alot of it qualifies mostly as raw and the music is generally downtempo, but if I listen long enough it's actually uplifting. alot of these artists also make ambient style music inspired by nature.

I'm a fan of any good music, there isnt much I wont listen to, but metal is where my heart is. For sure. There's even very few metal bands I wont listen too. I have my preferences, thrash, progressive, and death metal are my favorite sub-genres, but I love most metal period. I even like some metalcore, (i.e. Converge, Parkway Drive, Born of Osiris, Dillenger Escape Plan, etc.).

But this is probably my favorite metal band, PERIOD.

YouTube - Nevermore - And The Maiden Spoke

I try to listen to happy music, I don't know what benefit listening to hard music would bring me. I listen to softer music.

You'd be surprised. Hell, this is one of the most uplifting songs I've ever heard from any band, of any genre.

YouTube - Hatebreed - Every Lasting Scar

Tool all the way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiR1hmpk-x4

Metal is also my favorite genre of music, but I cannot stand anything core. I am a very big "elitist" as many like to say about those of use who cannot stand hearing metalcore, deathcore, nu metal and all that being lumped into the greatness that is heavy metal. I wish it, along with all the modern metal crap, would go away and leave me with the greatness that still is around but hard to find. Bands like Volbeat don't stand a chance when compared to a band like Job for a Cowboy even when Volbeat is a thousand times better.

I like to see my leg move on it's own, find my hands playing an air guitar and moving my head around while singing to myself or out loud. But I cannot do that if the music doesn't force its emotion and soul into me. It's like listening to rock 'n roll. The stuff of today is bad when compared to the 70's and 80's. No longer do you have bands like Pink Floyd, Queen and Phil Collins. It's trash like Nickleback.

My favorite bands are stuff like this: Metallica, Megadeth, Acid Bath, The Project Hate, Akercocke, Amorphis (Can do without their middle period stuff) King Diamond and Death.

I did use to like the mallcore stuff, until I stumbled onto "The Trees Have Eyes" by King Diamond. While I had listened to the old headbangers ball, another TV show on a old small TV that could only be picked up by the antenna on it when I was a lot young. Buying Metallica and Megadeth albums didn't really expand my horizon. So, I listened to the crap from MTV (only medium I for music back then for anything resembling metal after Headbangers Ball ended) while I was a teen. Then one simple song made me realize what I had been lacking by listening to stuff like Korn, Orgy, Manson and others.

I have never looked back since then. As Bob Seger once said with his wise words "Today's music ain't got the same soul."

All you needed to say was Acid Bath. Good deal.

True Manson hasn't done a whole hell of a lot that's new musically since the Spooky Kids/[i]Portrait of an American Family days (though Antichrist Superstar was fairly impressive musically, being as mainstream as it was while having the amount of sonic weirdness it had onboard - mostly because of Reznor and Ogilvie) but the lyrics and concepts of 90% of his stuff make up for it entirely, and for God's sake don't compare him to Korn or any of those other nu-metal bands.

Death all the way, man. Chuck Schuldiner was IMO without a doubt the best death metal guitarist and lyricist to grace the planet. Truly one of a kind.