Happy Wednesday, lovely people! First off, a massive thank you to all those who participated in last week’s thread. I was overwhelmed by the positive response it got. We had so much fun!
This may or may not become a Wednesday tradition, but today I’d like to put another question to you all: what’s the very first record you’ve ever bought?
If you started collecting in another format, you can mention both: your first record ever (on CD/cassette tape/minidisc/8-track/whatever format it was) as well as your first vinyl record.
You may have received it as gift—that’s cool, provided it was you who chose it. Who paid for it is not that important—I want to know about the first record you actively chose to own.
I’d love to hear your story. See you in the comments!
The first record I ever bought with my own money was a 45: Elvis' 'Can't Help Falling With Love' backed with 'Rock-a-Hula-Baby.' I was probably around 6 or 7. Still have it and still plays.
I bought my first 45s in 1979 when I was 11 years old: "Don't Bring Me Down" by Electric Light Orchestra and "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by the Charlie Daniels Band. I bought my first LPs later that year: "Who Are You" by the Who and "Highway to Hell" by AC/DC. The floodgates really opened up the next year :-)
Thanks, Matt! I love "Don't Bring me Down". Very mature taste for an 11 year old. And I can see, already with your first LPs, you were not fcking around! Can't imagine what came after. Amazing. Thanks for sharing!
I was heavily influenced by the older brothers of my best friend. They had great taste and were going to lots of concerts, buying lots of records, etc.
Great question! My first vinyl record was Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes, a lucky cheap find at the weekly Saturday flea market here in town. I bought it before I even had a record player but after deciding I wanted one & I still love that it marked the start of my collection. The Basement Tapes is special even among Bob Dylan albums, its sound is very removed from everything else he produced back then & it has some of my favorite songs by him. It's in pretty good condition too!
Thanks, Vanessa! I love that your first vinyl record was (is) so meaningful.
My first record ever was probably the Spice Girls debut album on tape 😅 My first vinyl record was Mariah’s “Vision of Love” 7” single. And my first LP was Robert Cray’s “Strong Persuader”.
The first album I ever chose for myself was 'Revolver' - The Beatles. Okay, I was only eight when it was released, and I was heavily influenced by my older cousin who was a Beatles obsessive and bought everything they put out on the day of release, but I genuinely loved the album and still do.
Again, great minds.........I usually group those two together, and can never remember which of the two came out first! Plus, they (for me) are the still infinitely-accessible bridge from their glorious early "perfect pop-song" era to their (for me) more easily-dispensed psychedelic, "oooh, far out" post-"Pet Sounds" (yes, I said it!!! I guess I can "blame" Brian for "Sgt. Pepper and beyond!) output!
Also, I clearly remember having both those "R" Beatles albums as Capitol promos (again, I was 10 in '65). I was fascinated by the tiny "bullet-hole" punch-outs in the upper-right-hand corner of the covers.....that said "PROMO". I found a picture of one of those "bullet-riddled" covers online, and featured it in one of my articles. Here's one: https://musicpriceguide.com/23883/BEATLES-SEALED-MONO-PROMO-Rubber-Soul-1965-US-CAPITOL-LP.html
Believe me, Boobie......if I could take you in the Wayback Machine to 1965, to smell the jackets, see the vinyl, and walk into a record store, I would!
First record I bought was a 45, the Rolling Stones' "Last Time', at age 8. First album I bought with own money was "The World Of Progressive Music, Wowie Zowie" 5 years later. It introduced me to Savoy Brown, John Mayall, Keef Hartley Band and a bunch of kids from Charterhouse public school called Genesis.
I think the turn to the Stones was to be different from the Beatles adoring hordes. Those samplers were the best way to try new music for low cost - Picnic by the Harvest label, Fill Your Head With Rock or The Music Machine will Turn You on by CBS, I can remember some of those songs to this day. The ne plus ultra sampler though was Nice Enough to Eat by Island - Fairports, Tull, Nick Drake, Free, Traffic, Mott the Hoople and the glorious Better By You, Better Than Me by Spooky Tooth.
My first two vinyl buys (LP Division) were in about 1969 or 1970 (when I was 14 or 15). For those who've been following along, my in-radio Dad brought home Capitol Beatles promo LPs (and other artists) for me in the mid-'60s! So, accumulating a small PVC mountain happened even before I knew these things showed up in stores!😉
I was attracted, in 1969, to The Who's "Tommy," likely because I had heard it was about a lad about my age. I also remember buying "Meddle" by Pink Floyd (mainly because I liked the cover!), but that would've had to have been no earlier than 1971.
Because Dad brought home precious few singles (I feel so deprived!), I do know I bought more than my share of mid-'60s British Invasion 45s at the local store with my allowance!
I always love hearing/reading your stories because (I said it many times and I will never get tired of saying it) I would KILL to be transported back to those glory days, when I wasn't even a project, let alone born! Just to see, to breathe that air... inside a record store... I'm imagining it right now!
Crazy that you would buy an album because you liked the cover. That's the fascinating thing about the golden days: if you didn't catch it on radio, you had no way of streaming/searching/googling/youtubing. Amazing memories!
"When I wasn't even a project"!! May I see THOSE blueprints? Well, and as for "Meddle," two things: I must've felt my allowance burning a hole in my pocket, and was feeling the need to express myself as a customer. Again (and trying desperately to not keep beating this dead horse), with my endless promo vinyl largesse (and reading rock mags by '71, having just recently "graduated" from Flip, Tiger Beat, and 16), I was likely aware of Floyd, but just in the slightest. I can't recall being drawn to what music might be inside...just thought the cover was cool.
Secondly, the irony is that I've never bought another Floyd album in my life....and, never liked them enough to even grab a promo of any of their albums from the control room, or later, from the record rep as he dropped by the record store! Plus, in radio by the time things like "DSOTMoon" (and PF's following mid-'70s Columbia product) came out, I'd end up playing these things to stomach-churning repetition, and had heard quite enough!
And (as I've chronicled before), I was turned on to my ultimate prog-band-of-choice-for-life, Genesis, by my lead guitarist in late '72! Floyd to me was far too pointlessly noodling (I suppose it would've helped had I been a drug-user!) and, while their output usually left me uncomfortably numb, Genesis was using their early songwriting prowess to create incredibly tuneful and riveting long-form "prog" that just mesmerized me!
I love your desire to recreate the era for yourself. That's so cool, and helps me to remember to not take it for granted! I vividly remember buying the "Ziggy Stardust" album week of release (mid-June '72) in a small Houston record store. RCA list price: $4.98. Normal store tag price: $3.99. Sale price for first week of release at this store: $2.99. I can remember the prices simply because I did so little record-buying (at least until I started delving into secondary market buying in late-'70s/early-'80s, for collectibles)!
Fascinating stuff. I know more about Pink Floyd than Genesis, but Stephan is a fan of Phil Collins (and, consequently, knows more about Genesis than I do). I’ve only started paying conscious attention to them fairly recently, but already have some of their records in my wantlist 😊
Crazy you even remember the prices! And, speaking of time-travelling, can we at least get those prices back? 🤣
I was given records as presents and was always rifling through my mom's collection, but I distinctly remember the day my mom drove me to the record store, cash in hand from doing neighborhood chores, to buy Abbey Road when it was still a new release. I would have been 7 or 8, so 1969-1970.
What a monumental record. And what a way to start, eh! It's probably my favourite Beatles album. I am lucky to live only 15-20 min walk away from Abbey Road studios. I've lived in this area of London for more than ten years. No matter how many times I may have walked past, there's something about that place that never fails to take my breath away.
My parents had given me a (then) extremely bad ass Panasonic portable that included both a cassette player and a spring loaded turntable that slid out from the bottom when you pushed the front. I was still way more into cassettes, because of their portability—even with a portable turntable—and none of my friends had turntables, so I couldn't take vinyl to their houses to listen together. Even at 10 or 11, it seems I was thinking about listening to musical as a communal exchange. I did love them for how big the packaging was, and being able to see the liner notes and credits better!
CF Turner's bass lines are first class and how the tracks move from dark and hard to classic rock blues is awesome.
To this day I still remember playing in the backyard with my buddy when his, older high school aged brother started playing, Not Fragile. I immediately ran up to the black light lit room, fumbled through the haze to find out who was making this spectacular sound. I credit this song, and album to moving me beyond Puff the magic dragon to exploration of music.
Thanks! Just read it. Isn’t it frustrating when you buy a record almost blindly, convinced you will like it, and then you can’t stand it? I’m glad you didn’t give up though!
First album I bought was Queen’s The Game in 1981, when I was 9 yrs old. I played it on a plastic carry case record player with a built-in speaker that could handle 33s but I think was really designed for 45s. I imagine I looked somewhat comical, sitting on the floor and leaning my ear toward that terrible speaker. I don’t know what happened to that LP, but I still have the 2nd and 3rd albums I bought - Queen’s Greatest Hits and The Police, Synchronicity. For the record, I am no longer a Queen fan.
I just went in other directions soon thereafter- primarily new wave and post-punk, and then I discovered jazz. I lost interest in Queen’s arena rock (and somewhat bloated) sound. BUT, Fat Bottomed Girls is a good song and Under Pressure is a fantastic song. I credit that to Bowie as much as Freddy and crew. (I’m a big Bowie fan.)
I hear you. My favourite Queen song is "My Melancholy Blues", which is not a typical Queen song. I wish they had explored a bit more in that jazzy/bluesy direction. But I love the spendour of albums like "A Night at the Opera", for example.
el primer vinilo que pedí de regalo fue "El Libro de la selva" banda sonora de la película de Disney de la década del '60, su gráfica era muy atractiva para los niños incluía un libro en forma de cuento. Y el primer vinilo que compré y elegí yo mismo en una disquería fue "Green river" Creedence Clearwater Revival. Es bueno aclarar que soy nacido en 1960....
My first vinyl record I owned was a single by Belle Stars « The Sign of the Times » As I was a young child living in England at the time, my mum bought it for me. I just listened to it again today after decades. It made me so happy!
The first album I bought was a CD. New Order’s « Substance »
Thanks, Tina! Just listened to “Sign of the Times” and really liked the funky groove. Very cool! Thanks for sharing this memory.
New Order, did you say? I highly recommend my friend Kevin’s Substack “On Repeat”. One of the nicest communities of music lovers on the entire Internet, plus he’s a massive New Order fan!
Mi primer vinilo fue "All by myself" de Eric Carmen! era un simple. Del lado B ni me acuerdo que tema tenía, solo escuchaba el lado A. Lo habré escuchado 10.000 veces en el Winco. Gracias por hacerme revivir esos tiempos! Besos
The first record I ever bought with my own money was a 45: Elvis' 'Can't Help Falling With Love' backed with 'Rock-a-Hula-Baby.' I was probably around 6 or 7. Still have it and still plays.
That's beautiful. You can't get more nostalgic than that!
Absolutely - I'm glad I took enough care of it that I can still listen to it.
That's amazing! Makes it even more special.
I bought my first 45s in 1979 when I was 11 years old: "Don't Bring Me Down" by Electric Light Orchestra and "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by the Charlie Daniels Band. I bought my first LPs later that year: "Who Are You" by the Who and "Highway to Hell" by AC/DC. The floodgates really opened up the next year :-)
Thanks, Matt! I love "Don't Bring me Down". Very mature taste for an 11 year old. And I can see, already with your first LPs, you were not fcking around! Can't imagine what came after. Amazing. Thanks for sharing!
I was heavily influenced by the older brothers of my best friend. They had great taste and were going to lots of concerts, buying lots of records, etc.
I can see they taught you well!
Duane Eddy Yep! 4 track EP on London. That guitar tone still makes me shiver...
Amazing!!
Great question! My first vinyl record was Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes, a lucky cheap find at the weekly Saturday flea market here in town. I bought it before I even had a record player but after deciding I wanted one & I still love that it marked the start of my collection. The Basement Tapes is special even among Bob Dylan albums, its sound is very removed from everything else he produced back then & it has some of my favorite songs by him. It's in pretty good condition too!
What was YOUR first record though?
Thanks, Vanessa! I love that your first vinyl record was (is) so meaningful.
My first record ever was probably the Spice Girls debut album on tape 😅 My first vinyl record was Mariah’s “Vision of Love” 7” single. And my first LP was Robert Cray’s “Strong Persuader”.
Pop, soul/R&B, and blues. Story of my life 😁
Aqualung, much to my Catholic parents dismay.
I remember my dad used to tease me with that cover when I was a kid and didn't want to go to bed early.
Gee, Michael......you'd think they'd-a gravitated to "My God," at the very least! And, done maybe three Hail "Cross-Eyed Mary"s!😱
The first album I ever chose for myself was 'Revolver' - The Beatles. Okay, I was only eight when it was released, and I was heavily influenced by my older cousin who was a Beatles obsessive and bought everything they put out on the day of release, but I genuinely loved the album and still do.
I love Revolver (and Rubber Soul). Great choice!
Again, great minds.........I usually group those two together, and can never remember which of the two came out first! Plus, they (for me) are the still infinitely-accessible bridge from their glorious early "perfect pop-song" era to their (for me) more easily-dispensed psychedelic, "oooh, far out" post-"Pet Sounds" (yes, I said it!!! I guess I can "blame" Brian for "Sgt. Pepper and beyond!) output!
Also, I clearly remember having both those "R" Beatles albums as Capitol promos (again, I was 10 in '65). I was fascinated by the tiny "bullet-hole" punch-outs in the upper-right-hand corner of the covers.....that said "PROMO". I found a picture of one of those "bullet-riddled" covers online, and featured it in one of my articles. Here's one: https://musicpriceguide.com/23883/BEATLES-SEALED-MONO-PROMO-Rubber-Soul-1965-US-CAPITOL-LP.html
Believe me, Boobie......if I could take you in the Wayback Machine to 1965, to smell the jackets, see the vinyl, and walk into a record store, I would!
I think Rubber Soul came out first but yeah, I tend to mix up the order of those two!
I love how photographic your memory is. And crucially, how well you describe things! Yes please take me back to those times! 😁
Cool first album, Ian! Interestingly sophisticated first Fab Four exposure for an 8-year-old. Impressive!
AC/DC’s “Back in Black.” I had to buy a new copy this year because that first one was scuffed to hell.
Nice! Sounds like the record lived its best years and had its share of fun too 😉
The first record I bought was Trilogy by Emerson, Lake and Palmer because of the song From The Beginning 😎
Nice! Do you remember how old you were?
13
First record I bought was a 45, the Rolling Stones' "Last Time', at age 8. First album I bought with own money was "The World Of Progressive Music, Wowie Zowie" 5 years later. It introduced me to Savoy Brown, John Mayall, Keef Hartley Band and a bunch of kids from Charterhouse public school called Genesis.
Jim, you’ve got TASTE, mate. Impressive. Especially considering how young you were!
I think the turn to the Stones was to be different from the Beatles adoring hordes. Those samplers were the best way to try new music for low cost - Picnic by the Harvest label, Fill Your Head With Rock or The Music Machine will Turn You on by CBS, I can remember some of those songs to this day. The ne plus ultra sampler though was Nice Enough to Eat by Island - Fairports, Tull, Nick Drake, Free, Traffic, Mott the Hoople and the glorious Better By You, Better Than Me by Spooky Tooth.
That’s awesome. I’ve always been more of a Beatles kind of guy, but I love a good Stones record every now and then. It just hits differently.
My first two vinyl buys (LP Division) were in about 1969 or 1970 (when I was 14 or 15). For those who've been following along, my in-radio Dad brought home Capitol Beatles promo LPs (and other artists) for me in the mid-'60s! So, accumulating a small PVC mountain happened even before I knew these things showed up in stores!😉
I was attracted, in 1969, to The Who's "Tommy," likely because I had heard it was about a lad about my age. I also remember buying "Meddle" by Pink Floyd (mainly because I liked the cover!), but that would've had to have been no earlier than 1971.
Because Dad brought home precious few singles (I feel so deprived!), I do know I bought more than my share of mid-'60s British Invasion 45s at the local store with my allowance!
I always love hearing/reading your stories because (I said it many times and I will never get tired of saying it) I would KILL to be transported back to those glory days, when I wasn't even a project, let alone born! Just to see, to breathe that air... inside a record store... I'm imagining it right now!
Crazy that you would buy an album because you liked the cover. That's the fascinating thing about the golden days: if you didn't catch it on radio, you had no way of streaming/searching/googling/youtubing. Amazing memories!
"When I wasn't even a project"!! May I see THOSE blueprints? Well, and as for "Meddle," two things: I must've felt my allowance burning a hole in my pocket, and was feeling the need to express myself as a customer. Again (and trying desperately to not keep beating this dead horse), with my endless promo vinyl largesse (and reading rock mags by '71, having just recently "graduated" from Flip, Tiger Beat, and 16), I was likely aware of Floyd, but just in the slightest. I can't recall being drawn to what music might be inside...just thought the cover was cool.
Secondly, the irony is that I've never bought another Floyd album in my life....and, never liked them enough to even grab a promo of any of their albums from the control room, or later, from the record rep as he dropped by the record store! Plus, in radio by the time things like "DSOTMoon" (and PF's following mid-'70s Columbia product) came out, I'd end up playing these things to stomach-churning repetition, and had heard quite enough!
And (as I've chronicled before), I was turned on to my ultimate prog-band-of-choice-for-life, Genesis, by my lead guitarist in late '72! Floyd to me was far too pointlessly noodling (I suppose it would've helped had I been a drug-user!) and, while their output usually left me uncomfortably numb, Genesis was using their early songwriting prowess to create incredibly tuneful and riveting long-form "prog" that just mesmerized me!
I love your desire to recreate the era for yourself. That's so cool, and helps me to remember to not take it for granted! I vividly remember buying the "Ziggy Stardust" album week of release (mid-June '72) in a small Houston record store. RCA list price: $4.98. Normal store tag price: $3.99. Sale price for first week of release at this store: $2.99. I can remember the prices simply because I did so little record-buying (at least until I started delving into secondary market buying in late-'70s/early-'80s, for collectibles)!
Fascinating stuff. I know more about Pink Floyd than Genesis, but Stephan is a fan of Phil Collins (and, consequently, knows more about Genesis than I do). I’ve only started paying conscious attention to them fairly recently, but already have some of their records in my wantlist 😊
Crazy you even remember the prices! And, speaking of time-travelling, can we at least get those prices back? 🤣
🤣🤣🤣❗
Vinyl - Twisted Sister, Stay Hungry. CD - Metallica, The Black Album
What an awesome cover for your vinyl debut!
I was given records as presents and was always rifling through my mom's collection, but I distinctly remember the day my mom drove me to the record store, cash in hand from doing neighborhood chores, to buy Abbey Road when it was still a new release. I would have been 7 or 8, so 1969-1970.
What a monumental record. And what a way to start, eh! It's probably my favourite Beatles album. I am lucky to live only 15-20 min walk away from Abbey Road studios. I've lived in this area of London for more than ten years. No matter how many times I may have walked past, there's something about that place that never fails to take my breath away.
I was there in 2016. I was amazed at the patience the locals had with everyone taking pictures at that crossing!
Lol yes I know. I wouldn’t like to have to drive through on a Sunday afternoon! 😆
Vinyl record: Quiet Riot—Metal Health, quickly followed by Slade—Keep Your Hands Off My Power Supply, and Men at Work—Cargo
I had already been buying cassettes though.
Cool! And going from cassette to vinyl must have been a whole experience in and of itself!
My parents had given me a (then) extremely bad ass Panasonic portable that included both a cassette player and a spring loaded turntable that slid out from the bottom when you pushed the front. I was still way more into cassettes, because of their portability—even with a portable turntable—and none of my friends had turntables, so I couldn't take vinyl to their houses to listen together. Even at 10 or 11, it seems I was thinking about listening to musical as a communal exchange. I did love them for how big the packaging was, and being able to see the liner notes and credits better!
The high-scale packaging goes a long way!
Bachman-Turner overdrive, Not Fragile.
CF Turner's bass lines are first class and how the tracks move from dark and hard to classic rock blues is awesome.
To this day I still remember playing in the backyard with my buddy when his, older high school aged brother started playing, Not Fragile. I immediately ran up to the black light lit room, fumbled through the haze to find out who was making this spectacular sound. I credit this song, and album to moving me beyond Puff the magic dragon to exploration of music.
Thanks, Bob! Sounds awesome. The evocative power of music is fascinating.
The first record I bought with my own money was kind of a mistake. Read all about it here: http://anearful.blogspot.com/2006/07/thanks-for-coming-back.html?m=0
Thanks! Just read it. Isn’t it frustrating when you buy a record almost blindly, convinced you will like it, and then you can’t stand it? I’m glad you didn’t give up though!
First album I bought was Queen’s The Game in 1981, when I was 9 yrs old. I played it on a plastic carry case record player with a built-in speaker that could handle 33s but I think was really designed for 45s. I imagine I looked somewhat comical, sitting on the floor and leaning my ear toward that terrible speaker. I don’t know what happened to that LP, but I still have the 2nd and 3rd albums I bought - Queen’s Greatest Hits and The Police, Synchronicity. For the record, I am no longer a Queen fan.
Such a cool memory. Personally I love Queen. What made you stop being a fan?
I just went in other directions soon thereafter- primarily new wave and post-punk, and then I discovered jazz. I lost interest in Queen’s arena rock (and somewhat bloated) sound. BUT, Fat Bottomed Girls is a good song and Under Pressure is a fantastic song. I credit that to Bowie as much as Freddy and crew. (I’m a big Bowie fan.)
I hear you. My favourite Queen song is "My Melancholy Blues", which is not a typical Queen song. I wish they had explored a bit more in that jazzy/bluesy direction. But I love the spendour of albums like "A Night at the Opera", for example.
el primer vinilo que pedí de regalo fue "El Libro de la selva" banda sonora de la película de Disney de la década del '60, su gráfica era muy atractiva para los niños incluía un libro en forma de cuento. Y el primer vinilo que compré y elegí yo mismo en una disquería fue "Green river" Creedence Clearwater Revival. Es bueno aclarar que soy nacido en 1960....
Gracias por el comentario! Y qué buen gusto ya de tan pequeño! Épocas gloriosas debieron haber sido.
My first vinyl record I owned was a single by Belle Stars « The Sign of the Times » As I was a young child living in England at the time, my mum bought it for me. I just listened to it again today after decades. It made me so happy!
The first album I bought was a CD. New Order’s « Substance »
I did choose it though mum bought it. I probably heard the song on « Top of the Pops »
Thanks, Tina! Just listened to “Sign of the Times” and really liked the funky groove. Very cool! Thanks for sharing this memory.
New Order, did you say? I highly recommend my friend Kevin’s Substack “On Repeat”. One of the nicest communities of music lovers on the entire Internet, plus he’s a massive New Order fan!
https://substack.com/@kevinalexander
Glad you liked it! Yep, it’s a cool song.
Thanks Andres! I’ll check out Kevin’s Substack. New Order’s show is also the first concert I went to.
Thank you, Tina!
Mi primer vinilo fue "All by myself" de Eric Carmen! era un simple. Del lado B ni me acuerdo que tema tenía, solo escuchaba el lado A. Lo habré escuchado 10.000 veces en el Winco. Gracias por hacerme revivir esos tiempos! Besos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN9CjAfo5n0
Qué hermoso recuerdo! Y qué temón! Gracias por compartir!
Last Week first vinyl: Glenn Campbell Adios, 35 yrs ago cassette , prob AC/DC Back in Black . Extremely new to vinyl.
Thanks, Laura! And welcome to the fascinating world of vinyl. It's a one-way ticket!
First album: My parents bought me Paul Revere and the Raiders' Midnight Ride, via the Columbia Record Club!
That's so cool. And via a record club, on top of that! Those were the days...
Tape: ACDC compilation. Vinyl: led Zeppelin 1.
Monumental way to start on vinyl