I’m planning to spend the day with the extended family, but this post raised an interesting question: what was the first album that you bought on your own? Vinyl, tape or CD?
For me it was Midnight Oil, Diesel and Dust. I bought it on tape some time during the first second Reagan administration.
Yep, I was pretty much born a raging lefty. You won’t be surprised to know that around the same time I secretly put weighted-down Listerine bottles in my family’s toilet bowls to reduce water per flush.
***Update***
Tear in time-space continuum repaired.
MrSnrub
Abba’s Greatest Hits
I’m so ashamed
Rob
Cosmo’s factory – I was about 12, I think.
It’s still a great album. In fact I may go out an buy it for my son.
Anna
Queen’s “Jazz” on cassette. (I still listen to Queen, though that cassette is long gone.)
Krista
I know that I bought Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms fairly early on in my life. But I’m afraid that it wasn’t the first one I ever bought on my own. That honor goes to Debbie Gibson…it’s pretty disgusting how 1980’s I was.
John Cole
Yes- Fragile was one ofthe first.
I think. I know the first album I ever received was in the 70’s and it was an Elvis Greatest hits piece. I also remember getting a Three Dog Night album.
Sojourner
Springsteen, Born to Run.
I’m old.
demimondian
Kansas, _Point of Know Return_
Soj — I’m older.
Mary
First five albums:
1. (13) Wings – Red Rose Speedway
2. (14) Elton John – Tumbleweed Connection
3. (14) Elton John – Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
4. (14) Liona Boyd – whatever her first album was
5. (15) Patti Smith – Horses
And it was all downhill into Dylan and punk after that.
Bob In Pacifica
I had a Martin Denny album, I think my dad gave it to me for a gift. The first album I remember buying was “Bob Dylan” which had his version of “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down.” Lots of dying songs, “In My Time Of Dying,” “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean,” etc. And “Man Of Constant Sorrow.” My older sister was a folkie and bought all the Peter, Paul and Mary 45s. Soon after this it was “Meet The Beatles,” and history marched on.
Dan
Led Zeppelin 4.
And no, I’m not that old.
salvage
Culture Club.
You know which one.
donald
Tapestry. I was 10, I don’t know how I can live with myself. What an ugly memory!
Gold Star for Robot Boy
A Doors compilation that began with a live version of “Who Do You Love?”
My friends and I were into a lot of 60s music. As I explain it, music from the late 80s sucked so much we had to steal from other decades.
Vladi G
I think R.E.M.’s Green was the first tape I ever bought, but I had an older brother with a ton of LPs that I used to listen to, so I didn’t start getting into my own thing until high school. I was probably the last person on earth to get a device that could play CDs (around 1995), so I think the first CD I ever bought was “University” by Throwing Muses.
Gray
I guess this must have been “The very best of ABBA”, german edition with the famous ‘Musikladen’ cover…
RSA
You guys think you’re old? The first record I bought was a 45, though I can’t recall what–probably some piece of pop crap. I was a late adopter of CD technology; my first CD was U2’s Joshua Tree in 1985.
Laura
I’ve inherited the family’s vinyl because I’m the only one with a turntable, and between my dad, brother and stepsister, they created a pretty good collection. I was the youngest, so I didn’t need to buy my own music until college. If I had to guess, I’d say it was Elvis Costello and the Attractions on tape.
Demdude
I can’t remember the the first album. I remember first purchase of music. Two 45’s. Bob Seager “Ramblin Man” and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles “Tears of a Clown”.
I just joined the “old folks” on the thread….
Laura
How about 8-track tapes? I didn’t purchase any on my own, but I remember family car trips in the station wagon with Paul McCartney and the Wings, BTO and Neil Diamond. Probably some Bread and Carpenters, too.
Mary
RSA, you think 1985 makes you a late adopter of CDs? HA! I bitched, moaned and whined until 1992, when I finally got Billy Bragg’s Don’t Try This At Home on CD to replace the dead tape.
Horshu
First album I owned was vinyl of Van Halen’s 1984 as an x-mas gift (2nd album was the 2nd one I opened, which was Ratt’s “Dancing Undercover”, so it would have been 1986 when I actually got them). First album I bought was a CD of 2 Live Crew’s “As Nasty As They Want To Be”.
Dave_Violence
Beatles’ Yellow Submarine
ppGaz
Okay, this will provide cover for anyone out there who is afraid to tell the truth. Laugh all you want.
Dave Brubeck Quartet at Carnegie Hall
1963.
I have since replaced the vinyl with the two-CD set and it still gets played at my house regularly. I can play most of Joe Morello’s drum parts, and a few of Brubeck’s on the piano. Not at the same time, though.
demimondian
ppG…I think you’re guilty of a stretcher, there. Nobody can play Joe Morello’s drum parts.
Well, except him, of course.
Otto Man
Men at Work, “Cargo,” cassette
Ned Raggett
I honestly can’t remember the first album I bought on my own, it would have been the early eighties though. Candidates include what are still two of the greatest albums of all time, Duran Duran’s Rio and Def Leppard’s Pyromania, both of which shaped my taste irrevocably in terms of loving loud brash music of all kinds. Even though my favorite band of all time is My Bloody Valentine, who sound like neither group. Well, too much.
First CD I ever bought I remember, though — the Less Than Zero soundtrack, early 1988. Still have it, though I haven’t listened in years. Hearing Glenn Danzig sing this lush romantic ballad during the in-between years post-Samhain and pre-Danzig the group is kinda weird.
GEC
OLD? You want old?? My first was “Let There Be Drums” by Sandy Nelson circa 1961 or 62, when I was (gasp!!) 11 or 12…. I’ll go back to my rocking chair now…..
ppGaz
When slightly drunk, I am convinced that I can, and I’ll thank you not to spoil that illusion.
CalDevil
Jackson 5 “ABC” was the first I bought myself. I think for about $3.98 at the long lost Korvette’s discount department store.
And, in keeping with the age defensiveness of fellow commenters, I’m not that old either.
Mr.Ortiz
Looks like I’m the baby of the bunch. First album purchased (and only cassette purchased) was Alice in Chains, Jar of Flies. Second album and first CD was Pearl Jam, Ten. But I had an older brother who was in Gold Star for Robot’s camp regarding 80s music, so I was raised on Led Zeppelin, AC/DC and Pink Floyd.
Big E
Bitches Brew by Miles Davis, then
more Miles & ‘Trane… hasn’t stopped ;-)
zzyzx
First albums I remember owning were the Beatles 67-70 on vinyl and The Bee Gee’s Greatest Hits on 8 track.
Louise
Ok, GEC is a teeny bit older than I am , but I win the shame contest (at least in retrospect). The first album I bought with my own money? ABC – The Jackson 5. How could I have known?
Mike S
First 45 was The Monkeys Not your stepping stone and the first album was The Eagles Hotel California. I bought the album in New Jersey and for some reason they had edited out Hell from “This could be Heaven or this could be (skip).” I exchanged it three times and the replacement kept doing the same thing.
John Redworth
First album I bought was Johnny Cash- At Folsom Prison
The next album was Kiss Alive II
Next was Sex Pistols- Never Mind the Bollocks…
Next was Clash- The Clash
Next was The Who- Quadrophenia
and I believe the next was Kinks- You Really Got Me or it was Jimi Hendrix- Are You Experienced…
It helped to have a brother that was 10 years older than I was… he gave me some great points to start my love of music… the first album my brother gave me was Miles Davis- Kind of Blue…
John Redworth
Mr Snrub… Abba’s Greatest Hits is a great album… but I am really screwed up when it comes to music…
ubernerd83
Just so I can make everyone feel old, the first CD I remember buying was Make Yourself by Incubus. There were lots of classical CDS before that, but they’re all kind of garbled together in my head.
The Disenfranchised Voter
I bought two albums when I first got my cd player. The Presidents of the United States of America, self-titled.
“Lump sat alone in a buggy marsh–totally emoitonless expect for her heart”
And the Smashing Pumpkins, Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. That album kicks so much ass. So many good songs on there.
TexasMike
Kiss Destroyer
I wanted Alive II but my parents wouldn’t allow it. All my friends had those cool tatoos. My face was clean and bare. Now I get fake tatoos whenever I go to the fair. My shrink says that there’s an issue here. What does he know…stupid Paul Anka listening P.H.D.
circlethewagons
The Wombles.
I think it was self-titled.
I’ve been trying to “womble free” through life ever since.
not 'murikan
Discharge > say nothing …
Eural
My first purchase – based entirely on the cool sci-fi cover art – was Peter Gabriel Plays Live. I was also a big Midnight Oil fan and it brings a tear to my eye to know they will only be memory (at least until the obligatory reunion tour/album).
Nicholas
Hey John, did you know that Peter Garret, the lead singer of Midnight Oil, is currently my representative in the Australian Federal House of Representatives? No kidding…
He seems like a pretty decent guy. I have that album too; not bad.
Mr Peter Garrett MP
Jess
I know my first was a Led Zeppelin record (not counting a few 45’s of embarrassingly bad 70s pop). I think it was the third one–I was obsessed with “Immigrant Song.” My first concert, when I was 13, was Kiss–the best inititiation into the warped world of rock ever!
Off Colfax
I know I’ll be subjected to multitude ridicule for admiting this one in a public forum. But my first album?
Wierd Al Yankovic’s Dare To Be Stupid
‘Nuff said.
Dexter
Peter Garrett is certifiable. He’s about as far to the left as you can get without crossing the international date line.
RonB
First vinyl-Disraeli Gears by Cream
First tape-Master Of Puppets by Metallica
First CD-Saint Julian by Julian Cope…I think
Mac Buckets
First vinyl — Clash – London Calling
First tape — Elvis Costello – Get Happy!!!
First CD — Jazz Butcher — Sex & Travel
Mac Buckets
I’m betting he’s the tallest MP in the world.
Nicholas
Can you please explain what he’s said or done which leads you to this conclusion? So far I have not heard anything from him which supports your assertion.
Not sure about the tallest, but probably the baldest.
John Redworth
Why isn’t the guy from Men At Work holding a position like that?
Pinko Punko
Well, I’m still gonna be honest, but now that I see Vladi G’s on this thread, I’m totally hosed.
I don’t know which was the first, but I got a lot of tapes I think for my 11th birthday:
Huey Lewis and the News-Sports
Bananarama-Bananarama
Thompson Twins-Into the Gap
Ghostbusters-Soundtrack
I am so dead. *sigh*
Baron Elmo
First Album – Three Dog Night’s “Golden Bisquits” (a best of with a detachable foldout poster affixed to the cover, featuring a photo of the band sitting naked in some magical garden). Their music still holds up nicely, methinks.
Now I look around the room at more than 6000 records and over 4000 CDs, remembering that day at K-Mart about 35 years ago where this damnable obsession started. What a long strange trip it’s been…
LAST Album (purchased the night before Thanksgiving): Masayuki Takayanagi’s “Action Direct: Live at Zojoji Hall 1985” (a Japanese guitarist who plays his axe laid flat on a tabletop in what the liner notes call “ravaging and all incinerating conceptual solo performance… a mass of lethal sonic mayhem”). Like I said: a long, strange trip.
Tim, how about a future thread in which we admit the biggest guilty pleasure in our music collections? Should be fun.
The Disenfranchised Voter
Mac said…
You know, I use to have a theory that people’s musical tastes reflect their political leanings. If you still enjoy the Clash as much as you use to, then there goes that theory. I mean, the Clash and a rabid Bush supporter?–That just wouldn’t be possible if my theory is right.
Kathy K
Simon and Garfunkel – Sounds of Silence (yes, I am that old).
a guy called larry
Steppenwolf, self-titled. My mother was not what you’d call thrilled to hear that.
a guy called larry
I crashed boldly into the 80’s in 1996.
Mac Buckets
Exciting, groundbreaking music (and why listen to anything else?) is usually made by angry young outsiders, who skew left. The music I’ve liked since I was 11 has been left of Labour, even when Labour was left — Clash, Costello, Billy Bragg, Superchunk.
And as Al Jourgenson said, “There’s only two kinds of music — good music and bad music. I hope we make the good kind.”
John Redworth
I don’t know… while I might be left of center and my musical tastes for the most part show such as the Clash and Billy Bragg, but I do have friends that are rabid Bush-lovers who are big fans of the Clash, et al… heck, one of the guys is so Right (musical tastes include Skrewdriver) but considers London Calling the greatest album ever…
But it could mean that I have strange friends…
The Disenfranchised Voter
I think it just means that my theory was completely wrong. Heh.