The first record I ever owned* was the Partridge Family’s “Up to Date.” Actually, I acquired this and a copy of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” at the same time — they were given to me by a cousin who was “growing out of them” (and growing into ABBA). Yesterday while jogging Amy and I came across a box of 8-track tapes, and there it was — my first album, albeit on different media. A Donny Osmond collection and the Star Wars soundtrack was also in the pile. So sad that someone had just tossed these aside, as if worthless. Well, I guess I don’t blame them. It’s not like anyone but Pagan Kennedy can play 8-tracks anymore. But still. Brought back great memories to see this cover, with the birthdays of each of the Partridges on it. I used to wonder whether these were the real birthdays of the Partridges, and if so, did they get flooded with presents every year.
* Full disclosure: I actually did have a couple of children’s records before this — some kind of Mickey Mouse adventure in a recording studio and a record where all the instruments of the orchestra had personalities and we got to know them and their voices. But those didn’t count because they were given to me by parents, i.e. not hip.
So what was your first album? (LP, CD, cassette, 8-track…)
first record i made a conscious decision to go out and buy with my own (allowance) money was ‘combat rock’ by the clash.
it came relatively late in my adolescence, this rite of passage, which i owe only to my parents’ good taste in music.
huzzah, mom and dad.
Due to a strict parental rule, I wasn’t allowed to listen to anything but classical music, and operettes (but that doesn’t count, because it isn’t really music).
Once fourteen, all hell broke loose. “Jean Genie” was the first of many, if I recall well. Could have been an ELP album too, but I’d rather not admit that.
Steve Hillage’s “Green” is the first I’ll admit to, Meco’s “Encounters of Every Kind” is the first I won’t admit to, and my half (shared purchase with little sister) of “Hitwave 77” I pretend never happened
This of course excludes anything my parents gave me before then. The scars are almost healed :-/
kind of a tough call – I don’t remember clearly, and I had so many records in my sister’s collection around while they were off at boarding school, and I got off on singles for a while before buying lps, then purged at one point and swore off all that came before for a second phase of New Wave and Progressive Rock – giving all the Kansas, Steve Miller, Boston and so on to my kid sister. I recall one of the more embarrassing moments around then was trying to sell a Neil Sedaka record and the guy at the cool record store (where Robert Fripp, PiL and Siouxsie played) refused to buy it, telling jme it brough bad back memories of when he’d had Sedaka as a summer camp counselor when he was a kid.
But the first album I can really place is probably The Who’s Tommy – at about age 12 or so, after seeing the movie. Then the second wave I recall more distinctly, I had purged all the mainstream rock records then got a job, and I won the B52’s and The Reds in a radio giveaway and taht started me back into having records again. I followed those with Tuxedomoon, The Residents, Devo, PiL’s first two lps and Robert Fripp’s Exposure. At least that’s what I want to remember now. ;^)
My sister Margit shares a birthday with Laurie (Susan Dey). IMDB says this is her real DOB.
http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0001138/
mnep, was amazed to see at that IMDB site the reference to “The Partridge Family, 2200 A.D.” — The adventures of a futuristic version of the Partridge Family. That’s *got* to be atrocious. Would love to see. Also found it funny that they gave Susan Day’s measurements, careful to qualify that those were her measurements during taping of the Partridge Family.
malium, I also had a “Tommy” phase (and to this day know more lyrics to it than I reasonably should). Would like to watch that again. Last time I saw it was in a high school cafeteria during an evening “rec” session.
My Ralph Records co-mingled peacefully in a collection with the Boston, Steve Miller, etc. They do again today, though it took a long to get back to that point :)
I remember it well – it was Adam and the Ants, “Prince Charming”. For much of my childhood I remember having a real strong feeling that I couldn’t declare that I liked any pop music whatsoever, then when I hit 11 or 12, with my friend Joel we suddenly got into music in a big way – Adam and the Ants, Bow Wow Wow (our favourite band) and Laurie Anderson. I still like all three, so perhaps it was worth waiting before deciding to like something enough to buy it.
I also bought my first album way before buying any singles, which seems (from reading gazillions of “my first single…” memories) to be quite unusual, although I’m not so sure. I can’t even remember what my first single was, although I can remember clearly owning about five of them, Simple Minds “Promised You a Miracle” (god they went downhill fast after that one), Pigbag’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Pigbag”, Rip Rig and Panic’s “You’re My Kind of Climate” (with the gloriously titled B-Side “She Gets So Hungry at Night She Eats Her Jewellry”, something by Altered Images, and another one.
The first single I remember owning was Ray Steven’s “Gitarzan” – about a dude swinging through the trees playin guitar, in his BVDs, without a trapeze.
I was in 6th grade and it was the soundtrack to “Jesus Christ, Superstar” (yes, back when the LP was orginally released :)
first album I bought was “Astral Weeks” after hearing it at some friends house (parents were playing it). Then I bought Tupelo Honey. Then moved onto Blue, Are you experienced, and … The Simpsons Sing the Blues. Then I went for pop (new Michael Jackson, Bryan Adams). Once I got fed up with all the pop shit they played around me at school, on radio, i went for everything you couldn’t have shoved down your ear canal: Tim Buckley, Janis, Joan Baez, more Jimi, more Van. Truth is I hated 80s music so much, I didn’t really buy anything from the 80s until I got to the mid 90s, and that was when I was backtracking for new artists I liked in the 90s. Morrisey and the Smiths are a good exception to 80s music I bought. Also bought Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, and Run DMC. I guess those were 80s too. Shit, the Police I bought as well, and Paul Simon’s stuff during the 80s.
My first album that I sought out on my own volition was either Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” or The Beastie Boys’ “License to Ill”..
The first CD I purchased was Faith No More’s “The Real Thing”.
I’m not sure if it was Duran Duran’s “Arena” or Hall & Oates’ “Big Bam Boom”.
I’ll understand if you want to ban me from your website after this, of course.
the soundtrack to Grease, on 8 track tape. And I made my brother buy it for me as a 10th birthday present, which he was pretty pissed about since it cost almost $10.
As cringeworthy as this is, I still think it beats my sister’s Captain and Tennille records.
I’m pretty sure the first record I bought myself was Kiss: Destroyer. I was being influenced by friends who were into that light-metal stuff, like Bad Company and even Peter Frampton.
Later, around college time, I got rid of all my Kiss records, out of embarassment, I guess. Naturally, by the ’90s I wished I still had them, at least for ironic purposes.
Just last week a friend gave me Destroyer for my birthday (the LP, not the CD). Gotta love Beth and Detroit Rock City.
Kiss at Madison Square Garden in 1977 was also my first rock concert.
Man, the Kiss stuff… I too had Destroyer, and the eponymous record. Mom confiscated them when she heard “Christine Sixteen.” Then she took the Zappa too. I vowed that when I grew up I would one day have everything Kiss and Zappa ever released. That never happened, of course :)
Rubber soul
As a child: Goons EP and Hideaway by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich. Then someone lent me some Hawkwind and Uriah Heep albums when I was 13 and I bought Oora by the Edgar Broughton Band. What a classic!
Hi Scot, so my first records (they were 8tracks): beatles’ yellow sub, elton john, and hall and oates. First record records: partridge family, captain & tennille, and carol channing doing “loud mouse.” Don’t remember the order of acquisition, but they arrived around the same time. I love that music, even if I would otherwise not like it today, because in the 2nd grade, listening over and over, it was a very emotional, pop, illicit because my parents didn’t really allow it, nothing like the intellectual classical music played by my parents.
Hi Mary. I have been looking for a copy of Carol Channing Loud Mouse. We had a tape with my children and I am looking now for grandchildren. Do you still have the record? jcsikes@sbcglobal.net