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

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)