Some hard music is just mindless guitar thrashing, but those bands never make it big.
I listen to soft stuff like Chris Cornell and Dave Matthews up to heavy stuff like Morbid Angel, with all kinds of stuff in between. Drowning Pool may have lame lyrics but I can take a song or two just based on the music. My favorite band of all time is probably Soundgarden. My favorite new band is American Head Charge. It varies but I will listen to pretty much anything, excluding pop/soft rock/country complete mainstream stuff.