I’d recommend Parade as your next Prince album - it’s underrated, and does a much better job of the psychedelic pop than the previous album, Around The World in a Day (which mostly sucks). Dirty Mind and 1999 are also worth checking out.
Disc one of Sing ‘O’ The Times has some stuff that grows on you - Play in the Sunshine, Housequake, Starfish and Coffee, Forever In My Life - but I agree Disc 2 is better.
I’m listening to Darkside of the Moon.
It’s going to take some time re-listening to understand. It’s weird.
**Update:
Pink Floyd - Darkside of the Moon**
I’ve been listening to this album a few times over the past week or two and I’ve delayed writing it up.
I have no idea what I’m missing, but this album does almost nothing for me. I don’t get it and it almost strikes me as “you had to be there” kind of things. I keep trying to get into it, but nope, it’s not working. I know it’s kind of a “stoner” album, but I also know that people like it on its own.
After waiting quite awhile to write it up, I have very little to say about it. I can’t think of one single track that perked my interest, including Money(the most famous track maybe?).
A total miss for me.
Should I try a different Pink Floyd album?
Well, I’m pretty sure we can strike any prog upthread. As for Floyd, “The Wall” might still work for you, it’s pretty different from DSotM.
The thing about it is that for me it’s basically 3 compositions: the entire first side, money, then the rest of side 2. The songs on the first side either intentionally glide into each other or feel to me more like movements of a symphony than tracks on an album.
The heartbeat in the beginning blends perfectly with the earnestness for companionship on Breathe. To me, the confused despair of the next instrumental track is an “answer” to Breathe’s search: no, you can’t find a perfect shelter. Followed by Time, a commentary on people who futilely search for something they can’t put their finger on all their life, which blends in perfectly with the previous track by itself starting in confused noise. Then of course the first side ends the way all life ends: when our vanities and fears dissipate when our life ends.
That’s just what I came up with off the cuff: it’s more of a justification for a series of songs I already love rather than a reason.
ETA: however, DSotM is only barely in my top5 floyd albums. The Wall is my favorite album ever and is just as accessible as DSotM. It has much better musical work and lyrics all around (except arguably the drums.)
listen to NAF1138, he speaks the truth. Based on what you’ve liked so far, Black Sabbath’s Paranoid is absolutely essential for you, not only because it will blow you away, but it’s also important historically, because no other band was as influential to virtually every Heavy Metal band that followed. Sabbath’s first couple albums were also great, but Paranoid is when they found their voice. To think that these songs were recorded in 1970 is truly mind blowing.
I love Pink Floyd, but I find DSotM to be sort of meh. Try Wish You Were Here. Skip the first track, listen to the whole album except the last track, then go back and do a second listen to the whole album with the Shine On You Crazy Diamond opus bookends included. You need to get a feel for what they are doing before you tackle those tracks, but most of their most soulful work is on that album with not a single dud track on it. If you like it, check out The Wall which is also great but a bit of a time investment if you are going to listen to it right. If not, you haven’t invested more than about a half hour of your life and now you know you don’t like Pink Floyd.
Edit: Also, have you tried listening with headphones?
As a side note, you might actually like the early stuff with Syd Barrett on the album Piper at the Gates of Dawn but that is almost a totally different band in terms of their sound. So it’s not really representative.
Paranoid is one of their first couple albums (second, actually), but yeah, I’d agree as to their importance to Heavy Metal. (Even more mindblowing is the claim they recorded their first album in a single day!)
Damn that’s right, I always forget Paranoid came before Master of Reality, which seems less sophisticated to me somehow, but also less bluesy so I guess it makes sense
I’ve been following along in this thread for weeks now, but I’m hesitant to make any recommendations because most of what I’d recommend wouldn’t fall into the category of “albums everybody has already heard”.
Still, it’s been fun to read Mahaloth’s take on things and also fun to see what people are recommending and why.
Baron Von Tollbooth and the Chrome Nun.
Update - kind of
I have certainly slowed down, but am by no means quitting the experiment. I have been busy and have been also listening to albums I already liked.
While I take a brief break, I thought I’d turn the tables and “assign” a few albums out that I consider classics and mandatory listening. I won’t rank them, but will say a bit about some.
Please feel free to post thoughts here on these albums. 
Nightwish - Dark Passion Play - I do not like Nightwish before this album, but love them since. I don’t like operatic music, but enjoyed Anette Olzon.
Nightwish - Imagenerum - This is the best album from Nightwish and a true classic. Skip “Slow Love”, though; it does not belong on the album. If you must choose a track, try Rest Calm and listen to it all the way through.
**Within Temptation - The Heart of Everything **- great album. Try it.
Within Temptation - The Unforgiving - less than the previous album, but still amazing.
I should note that Within Temptation is my favorite band. I would listen to everything they released except their first album, which was wildly different.
Sepultura - Roots - This, to me, is the best heavy metal album of all time. I don’t love it as much as I did when it came out(my style has changed), but is there really any heavy metal album as solid as this? Just try the first track and be blown away. Roots Bloody Roots is the best metal track ever recorded.
Alice in Chains - Dirt - Every single track is a classic. I miss Layne more than any other rock singer/performer.
**Nirvana - Unplugged **- heartbreaking to hear, but wonderful.
I have many more, but the above should help out. Most are available on Youtube if you want to listen without purchasing…though I do not know the legality of that.
Especially check out the two Nightwish and Within Temptation albums, as I would imagine they are far less known.
Do your parents know you listen to heavy metal?
All I can say upon a cursory first listen to some of your suggestions is that I’m kind of surprised any of my own suggestions struck a chord with you at all (we seem to have very different tastes).
That said, Within Temptation reminds me an awful lot of Evanescence, so that’s maybe another band you could look into when you have the time.
For the edification of future generations, please note that this thread is currently … um … current.
Nah, Within Temptation is quite a bit different from Evanescence, though I get the comparison at first. Within Temptation isn’t depressing or mopey, for one.
****:BUMP:
OK, so I’m ready for some more albums.
What is the best Rush album to listen to? I’ve heard, and again I am not kidding, zero songs from this band. I know nothing of Rush except “it’s a band that people like”. What album should I start with?
::grabs popcorn::
This should be interesting. I don’t have sufficient Rush cred to start this discussion. And I suspect it will be a long discussion 
People pretty much either love or hate Rush. In my experience, there isn’t much in between.
Moving Pictures is probably their most well known album. It contains “Tom Sawyer” (which I find hard to believe you’ve never heard.) it also has “Limelight” which is one of my favorite Rush songs. I’ve always liked them and was a pretty big fan in high school but I haven’t kept up with them recently. I saw them in 1985 on the Power Windows Tour.
*2112 *
All The Worlds a Stage
and
Moving Pictures
are the ones that have already been recommended in the thread. There was a little mini debate about how accessible 2112 is (it’s their most critically acclaimed album, but some said that it wasn’t a good starting point and that Moving Pictures was a better start).
For my money, if you want to listen to the famous stuff listen to 2112 and then just download the single of Tom Sawyer as an individual track. But it sort of depends on if you are just trying to get a touchstone or if you are trying to get into the band.
And then take all of that with a lump of salt because I’m not any kind of Rush fan. 2112 is the only album of theirs that I have heard as an album (I have heard one off tracks of other stuff) and also the only album that I would be able to name just off the top of my head. I think it fits your thread title request better than any of their other albums.