What Was The First Album/Cd You Purchased For Yourself?

The Best Of U2 1980-1990

And it wasn't even an "hey, I was young and naive, gimme a break" kinda thing; I just figured "hey, it's not like I'm ever gonna buy the *albums*, and I love Greatest Hits albums, so why not?". Also there was a small amount of peer pressure cos I was on a student exchange trip to the USA back then and didn't want to buy anything too "weird" for them (thus the refusal to buy One Foot In The Grave or the Bonzo Dog Best Of that I would've otherwise purchased...not to mention that 12 cent Lovin' Spoonful compo I saw in K-Markt!)

Last year I went on a student trip and bought The Best Of U2 1990-2000 just because.

Mine was either U2's War or The Ramones' Leave Home. I don't remember the order, but it was the winter of '82-83, because the first concert I saw was U2 in spring of '83 (and the second concert was the Ramones, too, now that I think of it...)

The first 7-inch I bought was some years earlier -- "Ah Leah" by Donnie Iris. In 1979, I believe. When I found a Donnie Iris compilation CD used for $2 last year, I bought it just to hear "Ah Leah" again.

First vinyl: El DeBarge "Who's Jonny" 45
First cassette (Christian): Stryper "Soldiers Under Command"
First cassette (Secular): Heart "Bad Animals"
First cd: Shakespear's Sister "Hormonally Yours"

liscense to ill, on cassette, lost in france by my sister if i remember correctly.

First vinyl - I'm hard pressed to recall. I know my first 7" was a Howard Jones one, so its likely an album by him was my first vinyl also *shamed face*

First casette - some 80's of-the-era compilation. But it had "the Damned Dont Cry" by Visage on it, which I think sowed a seed of interest in alternative for me...

Thank god this didn't include stuff wot you were given as gifts, so I dont have to own up to ever having a Bucks Fizz record... uhh. Shit.

I'm not sure how much later I returned to get the album. When I got it home, there was the additional embarrassment of my parent's seeing the cover. The outside was bad enough, the inside was even worse. Listening to the album today, the lyrical content that strikes me as more outrageous than anything on the cover but I don't think that I understood it very well at the time. Fortunately I don't think that my parents would have done either!

First LP (used, naturally): in all likelihood, The Doors. (Being a high school kid who liked the Doors in the early '90s might be some sort of new rite of passage for developing rock-crit cynicism. But fuk yoo, I heart "The Crystal Ship")

Ah, now here's an interesting question: First MP3. I'm 90% sure it was something from the Propellerheads back in late '97 (probably "Bang On!").

I honestly have no idea what my first CD was.

CD: started buying CDs to (again) tape for myself on my mom's player. first couple were X's Los Angeles/Wild Gift twofer and Funkadelic's One Nation Under a Groove, both when I was 16 or 17.

cassette: first record I had someone tape me was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, because I was 13 and it won a rock critics' poll. (Gambaccini, 1977.) first conscious purchase, at 10: Tears for Fears, Songs for the Big Chair. I still love "Everybody Wants to Rule the World."

I was 11.

I'm much more proud of that selection.

Aerosmith - Draw the Line & Kiss - Destroyer (8 track - circa 1981)
I got these at a swap meet not long after I was given a low end 70s stereo with a turntable, radio & 8 track built within. The Kiss Destroyer 8 track met a firey death in a friend of mines old van engine caught fire and burned up in college (R.I.P. 1976 - 1991).

Led Zeppelin - II & Houses of the Holy (tape - circa 1983)
I got these two from a cool aunt, the same Christmas I got my first walkman.

U2 - War, The Unforgettable Fire & REM - Reckoning (cd - circa 1986)
I bought all three for $10 bucks a year off a guy who needed cash about a six months before I even had a CD player.

Tom Waits - Rain Dogs & Mission of Burma - self titled (old Ryko one)
These were the first two CDs I bought in college, day I moved into the dorms. Quite a memorable afternoon.

I got my first CD player in 1987 for $250. A Yamaha component that finally had a belt go limp, and when I could find a replacement I got a Sony portable.

Peter Cetera - Solitude/Solitaire
Huey Lewis and the News - Fore!
Kool and the Gang - Greatest Hits
George Strait - Greatest Hits (vol. 1)
Kool Moe Dee - How Ya Like Me Now
Billy Ocean - Suddenly

and six other albums that were comparitively very bad. But those were the ones that I listened to over and over and over. I have no idea if this explains anything about my current tastes or not.

Not really sure about the 8-track and cassette, though.

1)first cassingle: 'chain reaction' by john farnham
2)first tape: 'honeychild' by jenny morrisson
3)first cd: 'august and everything after' by counting crows

what the hell was i doing buying all this music i didn't like? 1)dunno 2)the lead single from it was #1 on the charts at the time and everyone at school used to sing it 3) to please my auntie because she provided the cash for it. the music i really liked was naughty and had swearing in it (eg. u2 "don't let the bastards grind you down) or 'bad thoughts'. i thought she would like it because david letterman did.

first tape: Please Hammer don't hurt em

First CD I called my own, though my dad bought it. Donald Fagen, Kamakiriad.
I was a weird kid.

first album was Barry Manilow - Tryin' to get the feeling, age ten.
my first 45 was Dr. Hook - only sixteen purchased when i was nine and a single was 94 cents plus tax.(15 years later i moved to an apt. in sf and lived next door to the lead guitarist on that track for 25 years)

First CD: 808 State - ex:el (I was a teenage Icelandic-Canadian Sugarcubes fan. And a music-obsessed older friend had made me a tape.)

Second CD: Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation (having previously enjoyed a cassette from the public library; vivid memory of popping it into the walkman waiting for the bus; it happened to be cued to side B so I heard Hey Joni first; had previously heard and liked Goo and Dirty but this was another level)

Third CD: Faith No More - Angel Dust (I don't have this one any more)

First classical CD: Dvorak: Symphony 9, Carnival Overture, Scherzo Capriccioso (London Symphony Orchestra/Istvan Kertesz) (Cutout bin at Sam the Record Man; the beginning of a classical CD buying habit that persists to this day, though now it's all about baroque-and-earlier music and postwar stuff)

First cassette: I don't remember, but maybe Peter Gabriel - So (who really knows - I got a lot of tapes from Columbia House, but this one stands out as one I listened to a lot. Also my introduction to Laurie Anderson, whose own work I didn't listen to and grow to love until years - decades? - later)

First 7": Either Yello - The Race or Art of Noise - Paranoimia (I can remember buying the Yello at a record/comic/book store but don't remember how the Art of Noise came into my possession)

First LP: Absolutely no idea. Something from a garage sale or thrift store. I grew up in the cassette->CD era so my first LP was less consequential and memorable. Though I have a lot of them now.

I already posted in this thread six years ago, but only a brief mention of the first CD. Now adding more detail.

First 7-inch: “Life’s a Long Song” by Jethro Tull (1971). I’m pretty sure I bought this from Woolworth’s in Brixton. My recollection is that they had the current chart singles out on display, so you could pick one up and then pay for it without having to request it at the counter. I quickly got addicted to buying singles from there, and also from a small shop in one of the indoor arcades of Brixton Market.

First album: Who’s Next by The Who (1971). I bought this around Christmas/New Year time from King’s Records, a funny little shop on Clapham Park Road that I recall sold mainly Irish music but had a small selection of pop and rock LPs. When I got home, I tried to remove the price sticker, but it didn’t come off cleanly and it damaged the sleeve. I remember being really upset about that. As for King’s Records, the entire parade of shops/houses was demolished a few years later and there’s no trace of it whatsoever, as where it stood is now just a grass verge and footpath, with a new council estate set further back from the road.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.459492,-0.1336312,3a,75y,47.95h,86.33t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s90bANOJmSwwNxRsbC1TyrQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

Cassette: Never purchased

CD: Hearsay by Alexander O’Neal (1987). I bought this from HMV in Oxford Street (the branch adjacent to Bond Street station – the same branch from where I attempted to steal a copy of Quadrophenia in 1973 but got caught). I actually bought the CD prior to having a CD player, but I was waiting for one to arrive. I knew someone who said they could get a great deal on these brand new Philips CD players. He was getting one for himself and asked me if I’d like one as well. I agreed and paid him, I think, £105 for it. When it arrived, I put Hearsay into it and listened to it a few times, but the machine broke down within a month or so and there seemed to be no way of getting my money back. My friend’s machine was fine and worked perfectly for many years. I later bought a Sony CD Walkman type machine that I still have but never use.

I don't quite remember, but it may have been Big Shiny Tunes 2 at the age of 12.

busted

I still like maybe about 70% of those songs, so it was hardly the worst start.

No Jacket Required (mistakenly thought it had “invisible touch” on it)
License to Ill
Joshua tree

When I was four I had my parents order this for me based on a TV ad:

https://img.discogs.com/rf-knS3GdiTRUKZUrENGrxkUQqc=/fit-in/600x629/filters:strip_icc():format(webp):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-5351017-1489172975-6163.jpeg.jpg

First LP I bought for myself was "Thriller" (at the supermarket). First cassette might have been "Raising Hell," but for sure I must have bought something between those two albums. Possibly Weird Al in 3-D?

45: Pink Floyd, "Money" or Yes, "Roundabout"
LP, new: Yes, 90125
LP, used: David Bowie, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
8 track tape: The Beach Boys, Holland
Cassette: Talk Talk, Spirit of Eden
CD: The Loud Family, Interbabe Concern
Paid download, full album: Pere Ubu, 390 Degrees of Simulated Stereo

45: Deep Purple, "Smoke on the Water"
LP: Queen, Night at the Opera
8-track tape: Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits
Cassette: AC/DC, High Voltage
CD: U2, The Joshua Tree
Cassingle: Primal Scream, "Loaded"

45: either the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" (with the Isley Brothers' "Twist and Shout" on the B-side) or Tom Petty's "Don't Come Around Here No More"
LP: Judas Priest, Unleashed in the East: Live in Japan and Point of Entry (same purchase)
8-track tape: never
Cassette: another Judas Priest album, either British Steel or Screaming for Vengeance
CD: Sinéad O'Connor, The Lion and the Cobra and Frank Zappa, Jazz From Hell (same purchase)
Cassingle: Metallica, "Eye of the Beholder"/"Breadfan"

First CD was Talking Heads "Sand in the Vaseline" comp, first piece of used vinyl was CCR "Cosmo's Factory", first piece of 'new' vinyl was the Operation Ivy "Hectic" EP

first album:
i dont think i bought any of my own, by the time i was old enough i was onto cassettes.
first one i was given was Olivia Newton Johns greatest hits vol2 on my bday when i was 6 or 7.

first cassette: (bought when i was 9, i think)
Madonna: Like A Virgin

first CD
-Nirvana In Utero
-Dinosaur Jr Where You Been
-Judgement Night soundtrack
(purchased all 3 at a Sam Goody near Union Station in LA while on an exchange trip to the States in highschool in 1993)

First cd: Shakespear's Sister "Hormonally Yours"

― paul cox (paul cox), Saturday, February 15, 2003 8:10 PM bookmarkflaglink

Actually my first cd excursion was 3 at the same time as well (dunno why I didn't mention all of them 18 years ago).

The aforementioned Shakespear's Sister, along with Cowboy Junkies' 'Trinity Session' and Curve's 'Doppelganger.'

I bought Chicago 18 on vinyl at age 8 or 9

I wanted George Michael's Faith but I don't think mom was ok with it

No Jacket Required (mistakenly thought it had “invisible touch” on it)

Heh, invisible touch was the first album i listened to on CD, at the local library. I was BLOWN AWAY by the crisp, clear sound. No need to rewind or fast forward!!

I actually purchased a few CD's in anticipation of owning a discman and then had to wait some time to actually hear them. I remember that the first was 'Last Splash', from a vending machine(!!) in a movie theatre somewhere in New Jersey. The novelty of buying a CD out of a vending machine appealed, so did the competitive price.
When I got my discman, I remember that 'Automatic for the People' wad the first thing I played on it, so I must have also had that one beforehand.

These were somewhat uncharacteristic choices, since i mostly listened to older stuff...

I used to buy a lot of used vinyl (because it was very cheap then, and i mostly listened to older stuff) but I can't remember the first.

Nor do i rember the first cassette- it may have been 'Rockin All Over The World' or 'Born in the USA'

xp “I Want Your Sex” probably ruined that dream for a number of kids.

oh yeah.

I remember us watching the Grammys and Color Me Badd was performing and mom was like "oh wow, theyre so good! it's so nice to hear this kind of music again", loving the harmonies, then the chorus comes on "I wanna sex you up".

"THEY JUST LOST POINTS WITH ME!"

xpost as a kid I was obsessed with "Easy Lover" by Phil/Philip Bailey

first dubbed cassette was DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince - "He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper", which might be the first time an album title existed purely to help you distinguish who was which musician

What about "don't shoot me, I'm only the piano player"? :)

That one's kinda misleading tho

was more true of the follow-up, "Shoot Davey, I Can Always Get Another Guitar Player"

At camp one year, this awkward kid took the mic during announcements at lunch and asked if anyone has seen his DJ Jazzy Jeff tape… It became a running joke for the rest of the summer.

He really seems more like someone whose guitar player would be called Nigel.

xp

Nevermind, nigel is the drummer. Even better!

xxpost did he freestyle it?

i.e.

My name is Micah Kushner and I"m here to say
I'm missing my Jeff tape in a major way

First LP: Billy Joel, The Stranger in 1977. So out of step with my classmates who were into Kiss.

First cassette: I bought a mess in 1985 when I got my first portable tape player (Toshiba, I think). It's probably Tears For Fears, Songs From The Big Chair (UK extended version).

First CD: I got a CD player in 1987 and joined the Columbia House to get 7 or 8 for a dollar or something like that. Vaguely recall The Smiths, Strangeways / 10000 Maniacs, In My Tribe, possibly Depeche More, Shriekback and The Stranglers.

First LP: Billy Joel, 52nd Street

First Cassette: Men at Work, Business as Usual

First CD: Sugarcubes, Life's Too Good

First cassette (a double): Iron Maiden - Live After Death

First CD: Meatloaf - Hits Out of Hell

No idea of my first record. First 7" was, I think, Still of the Night.

mmmyeah, my taste has been all over the place forever I guess

first vinyl: the sisters of mercy, the reptile house EP
first CD: john hiatt, bring the family

I keep trying to think what was the first lp I bought at a shop with my own money, but it's a tough one. I was buying singles at jumble sales a lot, and I'd get lps as presents, so it must either be Kimono My House or Autobahn. Both of which got my parwnts complaining so much, I had to take them back to the shop (Autobahn) or swap with friends, as we only had one stereo in the house.

Then, I won a nice stereo on a TV show, so could play records in my room, and that was alright. Actually, I did have a small portable record player, good for singles or 78s but not so much for lps.

Anyway, will decide which, later...

the Pet Shop Boys remix album "Disco" on cassette. I played it to my grandma in Tralee whilst she was giving me cigs and bottles of beer when I was 14 years old and she thought it was grand.

Calzino your grandma sounds rad!

Cassette: There were five boys in my fourth grade class of fifteen, and we would gather round a cassette player with multiple headphone jacks, singing along to Def Leppard's Hysteria with all our guts, debating just what it was we were singing ("are you getting it?" no). My cool four-years-older brother had a cassette dub of the album and got sick of it, having moved on to the Green-er pastures of R.E.M.; he gave me his the dub (follow me, don't follow me). I wanted more. On a trip to Florida to visit my grandparents, I was given some spending money, and for the first time I decided to put it toward music instead of a book or a toy. I decided on Pyromania, probably because the cover art looked the most exciting. The cashier at the department store perhaps agreed — much too exciting — and said I'd have to get an adult to vouch for my right to the purchase. My grandfather, a retired bookbinder and opera fan, was unacquainted with the Leps but nonetheless politely told the clerk I was entitled to choose what I wanted. On the same trip, I was gifted an off-brand walkman so I could actually listen to the tape, facing further mortification when my grandmother listened to "Foolin'" (she declared the sound of the unit not bad for the price, though she didn't share this view of the music).

LPI've never remembered this. Vinyl was in its dying days with US music chains in '89, and I was ambivalent about the format. I understood that it sounded better than tapes, but I had the idea that if I touched vinyl I would destroy it. (Evidence included records in the family home with toddler-Jesse footprints on them — the babysitter had fallen asleep, and I must have longed for contact with these magical forbidden objects). I also didn't have my own turntable until I acquired a stacking system a couple of years later, so I felt less ownership of records. I like to think my first was either Peter Gabriel no. 2 or Fear of Music, both of which I bought in 1990, but it might have been a cutout of Hello! I Must Be Going — rarely got past "I Don't Care Anymore" on that one -- or a beat-up flea market copy of Glass Houses.

CD: One of many instances in a lifetime of buying albums I already owned in some other form, this was Songs from the Big Chair (already had a cassette and an LP), also in 1990.

Minidisc: I bought my first unit that plays these a couple of years ago and have one prerecorded title to go with it, Diamond Life.

first cassette - ABBA “Greatest Hits” ca 1976
first LP - Cold Chisel “Circus Animals”, returned to the store for “Hitwave ‘82”
first CD - The Cure “The Top” from a cutout bin around 1987

First CD - First CD I can remember going to the counter and purchasing in some sort of a music store (possibly with gift money of some sort?) was a collection of music from The Disney Afternoon at the age of 8. Though before that there were a few instances in which my parents were buying CDs from Columbia House during some sort of sale and would ask me if I wanted anything, and I got Michael Jackson's Bad, Dangerous, and maybe a few Disney soundtracks out of that.

First Cassette - Didn't buy a lot of cassettes for myself. Mostly used blank cassettes for making mix tapes or fake radio stations. The only cassette I can remember buying was from a local musical/sketch comedy group called The Backscratch Brothers which I bought at age 10.

First LP - Didn't start buying vinyl records till my mid 20s. Picked up a few random albums at thrift stores and garage sales around the time I got my first record player and those included Percy Sledge's Greatest Hits and a Collection of German Beer Drinking Music. First LP I picked up that wasn't used was a reissue of Pixies' Doolittle.

first LP: Born in the USA, sometime in 1984

first cassette: License to Ill, very late 1986/early 1987, right after I saw the video for the first time

first CD: Physical Graffiti, in late 1990 because a friend accidentally ordered it from Columbia House so I bought it off him for like ten bucks. I didn't have a CD player yet but was saving up for one.

Purple Rain and Raising Hell were the first tapes I bought, then after my Mom heard them she took them away.

jeez Mom

please hammer don't hurt em

Lol my mom bought me that one

Can only recall first CD, Hammer's too legit to quit, which was a pissoff when i discovered the tape had 4 or 5 extra songs including the Addams Family song!!

I'll take a stab at this.

first 7" single: "I Was Made For Dancin'" by Leif Garrett ('78/'79)

first LP: Eat to the Beat by Blondie, or possibly Some Girls by The Rolling Stones ('79). I *thought* that the Some Girls I bought was the controversial original version with celebrities on the cover, but upon further investigation I think I had the 2nd version with the celebrities removed.

first cassette: this is difficult to say... it would've been '80/'81... maybe Emotional Rescue by the Stones. I remember being conflicted in '80-'83 about whether to buy vinyl or cassettes. What tipped it toward cassettes was acquiring a Walkman, plus the fact that many cassettes came with bonus tracks in those days.

first 12" single: "Diamond Girl" by Nice & Wild ('86). I also had "Into the Groove" by Madonna which was '85 but I must have bought that later bc I'm p sure "Diamond Girl" was first.

first CD: I bought my first batch of CDs in early '87, among them Hatful of Hollow by The Smiths, Street Life - 20 Greatest Hits by Roxy Music (both UK imports), and A Date with Elvis by The Cramps. In hindsight The Cramps seems like an odd choice w/which to explore the exciting new world of digital clarity, but what can I say. Once I started with CDs I never again bought a prerecorded cassette, unless it was a self-produced cassette by a local band or something. But 2nd hand vinyl was abundant and cheap in the late '80s/early '90s so that's when I loaded up on old vinyl from the '60s onward.

first 3" CD: "Balloon Man" by Robyn Hitchcock ('88). Tbh the only other thing I remember owning in this format is "Little Jackie Wants to Be a Star" by Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam ('89), which I still have.

Josefa, we woulda hung out spinning records in the 80s. I still have that Robyn 3" CD!

My teenage boys answers to these questions: "BUY music?"

Oh wow! I lost my “Balloon Man” somewhere along the line. I had high hopes for the 3” CD single format but it fizzled out as quickly as it appeared. I don’t even have the necessary adaptor to play my Lisa Lisa one anymore.

TMNT soundtrack

My first CD3 was this:
https://img.discogs.com/B4FtYiTlNOES2xTytgerNsoFik8=/fit-in/600x586/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-1851158-1295114039.jpeg.jpg
I owe to it the mindblowing discovery that Peter Gabriel had been a member of Genesis! I also eventually bought all the parent albums represented, over the course of about fifteen years.

Pretty sure it was this bad boy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europop_(album)