Metal kicks arse. I know it sounds cheesy, but since discovering Metal I've actually found myself feeling alot better, day-to-day. I find it's a good outlet for any surpressed negative emotion I might have.
My Metal collection is relatively small but fairly distiniguished:
Machine Head - Burn My Eyes (The first and best album by Machine Head. "Old" is SO flippin' good).
Metallica - Master Of Puppets/Ride The Lightning (Don't even bother with checking anything after the Black Album).
Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power (Their best album. Bit samey but good).
Strapping Young Lad - Alien (Heavy as f**k, but also absolutely incredible from a musical point of view. This album blew me away when I first put it on).
Slayer - Reign In Blood/South of Heaven (Metal Gods from the 80s).
System Of A Down - Toxicity (Crazy nutter Metal).
Limp Bizkit - Chocolate Starfish... (Well, I liked bits of it even if it is a bit too commercial to be considered cool).
Rage Against The Machine - Rage Against The Machine (Tom Morello's guitar playing is too much. The whole album's good too, mind you)!
That's probably about it, I am also a huge Incubus fan, and whilst some people might class their earlier albums as Metal (Science, for example) I prefer to think of them as a Rock group. Same with Queens Of The Stone Age.
I think the one thing that really draws people towards Metal - and that certainly drew me towards it - is the sheer technicality of the truly decent bands. I don't really buy into this "Nu Metal" stuff like Nightwish and Hatebreed and what-have-you though. It's all too much of a muchness and it's not that interesting musically either.
Lyrically, Metal's pretty good too. Yes, some bands do enjoy a good scream but there's nothing really wrong with that. Alot of metal lyrics piss all over your usual (to quote a skit on The Sagas of Klashnekoff) "Darling I bumbaclart love you/get down shake your f**king booty" lyrics that people typically listen to. Choosing one song at random, I think these lyrics are pretty good. It's a love song, but the angle is a bit more interesting than most:
If ever words were spoken
Painful and untrue
I said I loved but I lied
In my life
All I wanted
Was the keeping
Of someone like you
As it turns out
Deeper within me
Love was twisted and pointed at you
Never ending pain, quickly ending life --
(chorus) you keep this love, thing, child, toy
You keep this love, fist, scar, break
You keep this love
I’d been the tempting one
Stole her from herself
This gift in pain
Her pain was life
And sometimes I feel so sorry
I regret this the hurting of you
But you make me so unhappy
I’d take my life and leave love with you
I’d kill myself for you, I’d kill you for myself --
(chorus)
No more head trips (screamed very loudly)
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Off the top of my head, I don't think that's too bad an example, but there are better.
Don't know how anyone can say Dance is a samey genre though - It's the broadest genre I can think of - You've got class acts like Jazzanova, Aphex Twin and Air, and then loads of stuff inbetween (including three zillion kinds of House music, alot of which is highly multicultural) until you get to to stuff like Technical Itch, Dom and Roland and Moving Fusion... (D&B is the Metal of the Dance world).
Who likes Metal 
