Haha, a lot of folks that learn German actually listen to them. But I kind of stay away, because even though metal is my favorite music genre, it's not the best choice for the spoken language. I prefer hip hop and indy rock or even punk rock for everyday spoken German. Especially in German hip hop, they speak/rhyme, not sing, so that's great for catching the right pronunciation. When they are singing it's harder to catch that, and when they are screaming well...you get the picture
Hey you know what they say, when in Rome..
But in all honesty the more I learn it, the more I like German. There are so many ways to express in it. I'm having lots of fun learning it and that's the most important imo for information retention.
Maybe Dutch would be a nice challenge, but you guys don't give foreigners much incentive as you are the country in Europe with highest percentage of English speakers outside of UK

Here I meet Germans on the regular that don't speak English or their English is very poor. Or just Germans who prefer to communicate with foreigners in German if possible even though their English is great. But also people who know English, but are also learning German so they prefer to communicate in German since they are trying to improve that. They only switch to English when they get stumped, so they use it as a crutch for a certain phrase and then just continue on with German.
Haven't tried reading fantasy, sticking with detective/murder mysteries short stories, as I'm trying to up my fluency with everyday spoken language.
Hobbit might be a good start at higher level, I just finished B1 level (EU proficiency scale for EU languages, don't know if you're familiar with that). Maybe when I'm done with B2, I'll give it a go. It's one of my favorite books after all.