What was your first album?

[jorcus]

Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited. I am trying to remember my first CD but just can't at the moment. It's funny how much importance was placed on Stereo equipment from the 60's to about the mid 80's then Video equipment became the thing to own pushing stereo to the side in importance. I still have my Klipsch Speakers that I bought around 1980. I had to open a credit card to buy them. I think they cost $700 bucks for the pair. I hate to think how much I paid in interest. They still work fine I was thinking about replacing the capacitors but They did not look like they needed them last time I looked. I have a late 80's Akai receiver. It's ok but the transistors can overheat. I keep my eye out for other affordable vintage stuff but not so easy to come by anymore. I had a small Marantz power amp but one channel went out and my wife talked me into chucking it. That was right before the vintage stuff started being collectable.

 

[TheHolleys87]

The first album I bought with my own money was Meet the Beatles, but I had a record player and a few albums given to me before that - Pops for Tots is the earliest I can remember being “mine.” There was always music in our house, and may parents had actual albums of 78 rpm records by numerous artists.

 

[JeffC]

Jethro Tull - This Was

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon

 

[DeniseM]

 

[artringwald]

Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited. I am trying to remember my first CD but just can't at the moment. It's funny how much importance was placed on Stereo equipment from the 60's to about the mid 80's then Video equipment became the thing to own pushing stereo to the side in importance. I still have my Klipsch Speakers that I bought around 1980. I had to open a credit card to buy them. I think they cost $700 bucks for the pair. I hate to think how much I paid in interest. They still work fine I was thinking about replacing the capacitors but They did not look like they needed them last time I looked. I have a late 80's Akai receiver. It's ok but the transistors can overheat. I keep my eye out for other affordable vintage stuff but not so easy to come by anymore. I had a small Marantz power amp but one channel went out and my wife talked me into chucking it. That was right before the vintage stuff started being collectable.

Highway 61 Revisited is one of my favorite albums. It's also one of my favorite bike rides. When there's a strong wind from the south, we'll ride up Highway 61 to my friend's cabin.

Highway 61 Revisited

Rode up Highway 61 to Jim's cabin on a day with a very favorable tailwind. - 68.7 mi, +1180 ft. Bike ride in Oakdale, MN

ridewithgps.com

 

[SmithOp]

When I got to tech school after basic training everyone was buying stereo systems at the BX, I purchased a Panasonic all in one unit with AMFM, cassette, turntable and 2 speakers. My first roommate was from Boston and he insisted my first album had to be Blue Oyster Cult. My second was Led Zep fourth album that we called Bundle of Sticks. Before that it was all 45 singles in high school.

 

[slip]

When I got to tech school after basic training everyone was buying stereo systems at the BX, I purchased a Panasonic all in one unit with AMFM, cassette, turntable and 2 speakers. My first roommate was from Boston and he insisted my first album had to be Blue Oyster Cult. My second was Led Zep third album that we called Bundle of Sticks. Before that it was all 45 singles in high school.

Bundle of sticks?

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

I Listened to my older brother's albums, I think the first album i bought myself was the first Doors album.

 

[SmithOp]

Bundle of sticks?

Four, not three, I fixed it.

 

[artringwald]

Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited. I am trying to remember my first CD but just can't at the moment. It's funny how much importance was placed on Stereo equipment from the 60's to about the mid 80's then Video equipment became the thing to own pushing stereo to the side in importance. I still have my Klipsch Speakers that I bought around 1980. I had to open a credit card to buy them. I think they cost $700 bucks for the pair. I hate to think how much I paid in interest. They still work fine I was thinking about replacing the capacitors but They did not look like they needed them last time I looked. I have a late 80's Akai receiver. It's ok but the transistors can overheat. I keep my eye out for other affordable vintage stuff but not so easy to come by anymore. I had a small Marantz power amp but one channel went out and my wife talked me into chucking it. That was right before the vintage stuff started being collectable.

For awhile, it was hi-fi, then high end stereo, then quadraphonic/surround sound. Once MP3 players came out, it seems like sound quality didn't matter anymore. People ripped and shared MP3's with low sampling rates, used crappy MP3 players, with crappy earbuds. Players and earbuds got better, but people stopped buying decent speakers for audio, just for their emersive A/V system. Car systems got better too, but there's only so much you can do in one of the worst acoustic environments possible. Of course, with my loss of hearing, high fidelity doesn't matter much unless I remember to put in my hearing aids.

 

[RX8]

I guess I missed the album era because my first was actually a cassette tape.

I wish I knew exactly which was the very first cassette but since I got 11 cassettes for only a penny it is hard to say. I know Billy Joel, Elton John, Styx, and REO Speedwagon were in that first shipment.

 

[WaikikiFirst]

When Black Friday comes, anyone whose 1st album was Katy Lied gets the door prize.

for me, the first 2 are still 2 of my all-time favorite albums
1st = C King, Tapestry
2nd = R Stewart, EPTAS
3rd & 4th (do not remember order) = LA Woman & LedZep4 (well, LZ4 also an all-time fav)

 

[Brett]

Beatles, Stones & Doors

In other (subsequent) generations - - cassette tapes, CD's, MP3, and then 'what was your first song on Spotify"

 

[WaikikiFirst]

Bundle of sticks?

cover of LZ4 has a guy carrying same, so he must mean LZ4

 

[BingoBangoBongo]

I had older siblings so listened to some of their albums, so not sure what my first 33 was. I do remember buying the 45’s of Stevie Wonders Superstition and David Essex Rock On. Essex has had a very interesting path through life

 

[artringwald]

Beatles, Stones & Doors

In other (previous) generations there were cassette tapes, CD's, MP3, and then what was your first song on Spotify

I'm yet to try Spotify. For now, the free version of Pandora works well enough.

 

[clifffaith]

When Black Friday comes, anyone whose 1st album was Katy Lied gets the door prize.

for me, the first 2 are still 2 of my all-time favorite albums
1st = C King, Tapestry
2nd = R Stewart, EPTAS
3rd & 4th (do not remember order) = LA Woman & LedZep4 (well, LZ4 also an all-time fav)

You know, I bet I got Tapestry before Sticky Fingers. And come to think of it I’m pretty sure the Woodstock album, which was a present from Santa, was before that. Remember being sent back to bed after being caught creeping around the tree in the dark at 4am. Then they actually had to wake me up out of the middle of a dream about cotillions (no cotillions in our life, had to come from young teen literature). Then on the Woodstock cover was “Cotillion Records” as the record label. I thought that was so weird!
ETA now that we are strolling down Memory Lane, Bobby Sherman’s first album preceded everything!

 

[slip]

cover of LZ4 has a guy carrying same, so he must mean LZ4

That's what I thought and he corrected it.

 

[DaveNV]

First Album: Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass - "Going Places"

Second Album:

That was MY first album! I was in 8th grade, I think. Bought it at a Navy base in Seattle for like $2.50.

(I'm still amazed to think of Horst Jankowski. He's the guy who wrote A Walk In Te Black Forest. I think it was interesting that a "Mexican Band" would play a song about something in Europe.)

Small world!

Dave

 

[DaveNV]

Right now I'm listening to Ian and Sylvia's album In The Early Morning Rain. It was a present to me about 60 years ago. BTW, it's the mono version.
View attachment 102661

And wasn't that song written by Gordon Lightfoot? I think he just passed away last year.

Dave

 

[artringwald]

And wasn't that song written by Gordon Lightfoot? I think he just passed away last year.

Dave

Correct on both counts. The album also has That's What You Get For Lovin' Me, another Lightfoot song.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

I Listened to my older brother's albums, I think the first album i bought myself was the first Doors album.

I don't remember many specifics after that. I know that i was regularly visiting a couple of record stores i know i got the second Doors album and Sgt. Peppers. Also the sucky first Simon & Garfunkel album. I soon discovered the blues via my brother's Paul Butterfield Blues Band album, and by the time I headed to St. Louis for college I had some Muddy Waters and BB King in my collection.

 

[CanuckTravlr]

To my best recollection, my first album was Beatlemania by The Beatles sometime in late 1963 or early 1964 before they first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. I was in my first year of high school. It was quickly followed by Twist and Shout. I still have both original albums in my vinyl collection!

 

[MegatronsGun]

Mine was Thriller. I was a kid when the video premiered and my cousins and I watched it ALL day as MTV only played that video for 2 or 3 days. Greatest video ever hands down! And an iconic album.

 

[AwayWeGo]

How about your first MP3 purchase?

The 1 & only mp3 I bought is Topsy Part II -- the 1977 Meco version, not the famous 1958 Cozy Cole version.

I needed it on mp3 so I could send it via internet to a musician I met when he was a Fairfax Band guest artist & I volunteered to take on chauffeur & gofer duties for him. It turned out he was the arranger of the Cozy Cole version of Topsy. Not only that, he played Hammond organ on the recording session when that track was taped. He knew all about Topsy, except he was unfamiliar with the Meco version. So I bought it on mp3 (for 99¢) & sent it to him, pleased with myself for knowing anything about the tune that he didn't know.

In addition to the 1 mp3 that I bought & paid for, I have lots of others that my younger son (may he rest in peace) downloaded for me during the early wild & wooly years of internet file sharing. Those audio files live on even though my son is gone. The bootleg digital tunes reside on the music app of my desktop computer & on my iPhone, as well as on the iPod I formerly listened to at the gym. Now the audio files mostly just sit there unplayed. When I want to hear tunes via internet, I just about always listen via U-Tube.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.
​

PS: Click here for Meco's version of Topsy II. Click here for Cozy Cole's smash hit 1958 version, arranged by Dick Hyman, with Dick Hyman playing Hammond organ.

Full Disclosure: I am not related to Cozy Cole.