in 1979. My first single that I didn't pay for was the Blake's 7 theme tune. Rock n' Roll...

And my first LP was 'The Fine Art Of Surfacing' by The Boomtown Rats... they were popular once!

Kim Wilde. 1981 and I had just turned 12.

I loved Kim.

Tubeway Army - Are friends electric. Can remember playing the b-side first because I knew what the a-side sounded like.

Judy Teen,can't remember the year but sometime in the early seventies.Still have a soft spot for it now.

May 1981 - Memrydiscs, Douglas Road, Hounslow....99p Fold out poster sleeve.....!

I was 11

Don Spencer 1963
I was 9 at the time - theme to pre Thunderbirds Gerry Anderson TV show

1977, aged 12. Bought the double A-side Something Better Change/Straighten Out at the same time. Record shop next to Marks & Spencer in Leeds. Was it an HMV? That's certainly the first time I handed over hard cash for vinyl. Our neighbours, Mr & Mrs Jacques, had bought me Slade's 'Merry Christmas' in 1973, but I'm not counting that.

Still sounds good to me. And as for Cherry off Pans People, well ...

T.Rex. 1973. Woolies in Bangor.

( God, I was a cool kid ).

...or

Matthews Southern Comfort, Woodstock, 1970.

Both purchased so I'd have something good to play on my first ever record player, a little mono Portadyne. All purchased with a Premium Bond win my mom and dad let me spend. First record player in the Vincent household, actually.

I was living in Somerset and bought it with pocket money at Woolies in Taunton

I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday - 73?

Happy Talk 1982. I was nine. I remember being rather aghast at the pretty raucous din on the flipside.

The Flying Lizards - Money

1979-ish? I was 11, bought at Ingliston Market near Edinburgh... the picture sleeve still has the hole from where it was pinned up on the market stall.

Ever the bargain hunter, my first purchases were two 2nd hand Sparks singles - This town ain't... and Amateur Hour from a record stall at the local market.

CCS = Collective Consciousness Society. Fronted by Alexis Korner, so I established my jazz/blues creds at an early age.

Although actually it was the bit that went 'peep through the bathroom door, see your sister in the raw' that probably sold it to me.

I hasten to add that I don't have a sister. And that I was 12.

In 1971 I took my pocket money to HF Sheffield in Abbots Langley walked straight past the televisions and refrigerators and bought Blue Mink's "Banner Man" on Regal Zonophone and played it nearly to death - I still have it.

It was 1964 and I had just bought my first single play electric record player at the tender age of almost 16.
The proceeds for the Currys Westminster(a Dansette was too dear)£7 19s 6d coming from my part-time job telephoning football match reports through to the national newspapers.
With singles costing 6/8 you got three for a Pound, so from Durrants in Shrewsbury I acquired:-
5-4-3-2-1 by Manfred Mann
Bits and Pieces by Dave Clark 5
Sweets for My Sweet by The Searchers

It was an MFP single my Mum bought for me from the Co-Op (but I'm not ducking out - I chose it). It was backed by Boom Bang-A-Bang. Naturally, cos it was MFP, it was not performed by the Archies or Lulu.
It had a picture sleeve containing groovy animals and flowers - with a colour-in version on the back.

It was 1969 and I was 12.

Little did I know that the vocal for it was sung by the guy that sung the vocal on "Sugar Sugar" by the Archies, soon to be a purchase too as I discovered what great fun this whole record buying thing was !

Bought 1978 from WH Smith in Basingstoke. Was 8 at time.

1964 in Boots in Chester with a record token I was given for my 8th birthday, I bought Keep Searchin'. He'd been on Top of The Pops performing it and I knew what I had to buy with that token. I still have it, but the flimsy sleeve it came in disintegrated years ago.

1984, nine or ten years old.

Actually bought that froma stall in the Barras in Glasgow and got Two Tribes on the same day.

I used to listen to it on headphones in the living room and sing along. My parents found this hilarious, they'd make me listen to it when they had visitors.

I think I was born a bit late for a turntable. Was lucky enough to get a CD player for my 12th birthday. And I requested "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" to go with it. And I've never looked back.

We were staying with relatives for half-term in Birmingham, and I decided I now liked music enough to buy it.

We were in Beatties department store, and I was quite nervous but plucked up the courage and asked for the records by chart position.

A very nice lady presented me with Daddy Cool by Boney M and Jack In The Box by the Moments.

I was just about to turn 12. 1977.

'Turtle Power' by Partners in Kryme. I think I went with my Mum to buy it in Woolworths in Rutherglen, Glasgow.
This underrated gem is from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Original Soundtrack and I've been on The You Tube to find the video for you.
You don't need to thank me, your muffled screams are enough.

Bon Jovi - Livin' On a Prayer
I bought it when I was 11, so 1986

My musical tastes have changed since then but I still get fond childhood memories when I hear " Whooah, we're half way there...."

I remember my first batch of singles, Rebel Rebel, Radar Love & Bad Bad Boy by Nazareth, but cant remember which came fist. Jethro Tull's Stand Up was my fist LP, still got the price of 37/5 on it!

I'm a Believer - bought for me as a birthday present in 1967, I think. Fleetwood Mac - Albatross - the first of many visits to the record shop to buy my favourite 45 of that particular month (I didn't get much pocket money). I soon preferred the flip side - Jigsaw Puzzle Blues - fantastic. I remember the smell of a new, mint condition 45 straight from the shop - happy days!
I still have the Mac record but I've just discovered that the Monkees disc has gone - most likely fell victim to my brother's penchant for using (my) records for target practice for his air rifle. The bugger!

To Much Too Eoung EP - bought from good old Woolies in Pudsey for 99p (sadly no longer there, credit crunch victim!).. and loved the fact that i'd got 4 tracks for the price of 2!

Still got it too, creased corners and all!

T Rex. I was 10 and it was for my mum.

You are the sunshine of my life. circa 1973ish? upstairs in Boots Kettering.I remember being very excited at the time.

Talking Book was the first album I bought.

'Too Young', from an electrical goods shop in Bushey Heath, near Watford, that had a box of singles on a shelf near the back. Ca. 1971, when I was 9 or 10. God knows why I chose that to kick off my music-buying career - I suppose I must have seen him on TOTP and liked the song.

I remember having singles bought for me - Space's Magic Fly, Hank Mizell's Jungle Rock, Sherbert's Howzat, I Feel Love etc, but the first one I personally bought myself in a record shop (Debenhams in Ipswich, it seemed to have EVERYTHING) was the Cetera-era 'cago.

from Woolies in 1989, when I was 12. One was the Stone Roses' Fool's Gold. The other was the Ben Liebrand remix of The Eve of the War. Guess which one is my "official" first ever single?

First 3 were Si tu dois partir/Fairport Convention, Living in the past/Jethro Tull and Man of the World/Fleetwood Mac, all in 1969.
I was 12.
Honest.
Quite chuffed by that.

By the England 1970 World Cup squad. Or various people pretending to be them anyway. B-side was Cinnamon Stick, and the label looked like a football. Yes, I still have it. No, I don't play it.

1978. Always been quite chuffed with that.

Wow, I seem like a foetus in comparison with the majority of you...

I bought Clearlake's single Something To Look Forward To in 2001 for 99p. Bargain.

I was 15 at that point, and until then I'd bought CDs and cassettes. I don't get vinyl that often.

Also the coolest record I bought for about a decade or so.

Tom Jones - Its not Unusual, 1965, I think, doubtless I will be corrected if I've" "mis-remembered". Could'nt even begin to say from which store though.

Bryan Ferry, 1976 (possibly). From Callers in Ponteland (look it up)

House of the Rising Sun, 1964, in Monaghan's (that's in Ireland)only record shop for about 6 bob. The flip side was really good too. I was 9.

The Tremeloes

Still got it somewhere. Not a bad record actually

Chuck Berry, 1972 I think. I was 8. Thought it was about the bell on his bike...

Insert your Chopper joke

but (don't laugh), I think it was Two Little Boys by Rolf Harris. However, if that was a present, and it could well have been given the time of year it was issued, then in common with Paul Wright above it's "Back Home" by the England 1970 World Cup Squad which I definitely bought.

But it was "The Freeze" by Spandau Ballet in 1981 - 49p at Woolworths in Addlestone. I liked the synth riff.

In my defence, my LP buying was well established by then. First ones were Beatles and Monkees compilations on the Music For Pleasure label that were incredibly cheap to buy, even back then.

Might have been an ELO record, possibly I'm Alive, if it was that then that wasn't one of their best efforts. The first record that I thought was mine was a David Bowie flexidisc with Life on Mars & Starman on it. I also really liked Simon Smith and The Amazing Dancing Bear, the Alan Price version with Tickle Me (also a Randy Newman song) on the b-side. That was my Mum's though. I still love that single.

My first 7" vinyl was Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall", 1979 - purchased from Woolies in Peterborough for 79p.

I was in my first year at secondary year and allowed to go into town on the bus on my own and expected not to get into trouble in any of the shops (nah, ... don't go there.. :-o). Even though I had started buying my own records I still had to wait 'my turn' to use the record player - older siblings eh?, pah!

1973 woolies

1978 and I was 8 years old. The only way was up.

Sometime in 1967 from WH Smith's cellar on Coney Street, York (Before I had anything to play them on)

Otis Redding - Shake (live) b/w 6345-789

Rex Garvin & The Mighty Cravers - Sock It To 'Em J.B. Parts 1 and 2 (Emperor Rosko's theme tune, I think. Not on Spotify yet)

The Stones. Bought it in Castleford, I think (probably Ely's Electrical shop). 1965, was it?

Mum bought it for me when I was 5, not sure why.

First one I bought was Ball Park Incident by Wizzard, 35p if I remember.

My memory has always told me it was Oliver's Army, but a quick check on the chart dates (http://www.yearsofgold.org.uk) tells me that it must have been Sarah Brightman and Hot Gossip's 'I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper'. Ahem...

bought with my own money was Sweet 'The Ballroom Blitz' in i believe 1973/4 for 50p.

First LP was Queen 'Night at the Opera', with xmas money early 76.

Suzie Quatro

Still like it enough to have it on my ipod. Still haven't the foggiest idea what it's about.

Dead End Street b/w Big Black Smoke. Pye. Gloria's Record Bar, Newlands, Glasgow. 1966.

The Boomtown Rats.

1978.

I was 11.

Don't remember where I bought it, though I have a vague recollection it might have been Woolies in Worksop. My mum (and dad) would have been there too, but it was definitely my own money!

I do remember thinking Bob Geldof was SO cool when he ripped up the picture of John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John on TOTP...

The Monkees' Alternate Title, aged 6. Just as well my mum didn't know it was really called Randy Scouse Git.

The last 7" single I bought from a record shop was by Rockingbirds. I think it was Everybody Lives With Us/Band Of Dreams.

“Theme from ‘Shaft’” Isaac Hayes

My first single, probably purchased in the record department at Boots. I think they cost 44p at the time... it was early 1972.

I can’t remember why I chose this particular record as my first ever piece of vinyl. Maybe it was the lyrics - although what did I know of dicks and chicks at 13 years of age?! Maybe it was because it was so unlike anything else around at the time. It certainly stiill sounds good today.

Phil

ummmm I think they were 99p at the time which was 1991 or thereabouts I reckon.

I was 11. I knew I wanted to do something with her but I didn't quite know what it was.

...is that this all just highlights how many, diverse places there were to buy tangible music product back in the day. Boots, department stores, electrical shops as well as yer usual WHS, Woolies, HMV and everyone's local indie stores. Now, obviously, there's HMV and, er...

1973, 47p, from saved up pocket money and purchased on my way home from school from Vernon Collard's electrical shop on Rayleigh High Street.

Technically, it wasn't the first single I ever bought - that was something by the David Cassidy and the Partridge Family for my sister's birthday. (Ugh!) My mum bought that and I just paid the money.

Thank you all. This has proved the over riding demographice of this website, i.e. 30+, Male, with an unhealthy love of New Wave, and a little psychedelia thrown in.

That's why I feel at home here!

by The Archies, in 1969. I was 5 at the time, so I hope I'm forgiven.

I bought it from Gloria's Record Bar, Battlefield Road, Glasgow, in 1974. Previous thread on this topic at :

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/first-single-collaborative-playlis...

And there's a Spotify playlist at http://open.spotify.com/user/elhombremalo/playlist/5isYu24qi2qiTDgnDaZAl...

I was 9 or 10, the shop was Boots and there were 3 singles purchased with my first record voucher.

Solid by Ashford & Simpson
Nightshift by The Commodores and....
A Howard Jones single that I think I played once and only bought because it had a nice bright cover

The Move Flowers In The Rain and Beatles Hello Goodbye. Late '67. From a forgotten shop in a country that no longer exists.
Ruined this flying start by later buying Dave Clark Five Play Good Old Rock n'Roll as my first LP.

by Dave & Ansell Collins, early 1971. In those days singles were 6s/8d (six shillings and eightpence, or £0.33 recurring in today's money) which meant you got exactly three for a pound. Not that I had a whole pound very often, my paper round yielded 17s/6d a week.

A Taste of Aggro - 1978 aged 6. Got it as a present (for some reason my parents decided to do presents as an laternative to Easter Eggs that year...) - but I'd asked for it. It's the Dentist in Birmingham/Smurfs in Prison one.

Sigh.

I remember cycling to the only record shop in Knutsford, Cheshire, at the age of 9 in what must have been early 1965, to buy Ferry Cross the Mersey by Gerry and the Pacemakers.

It would have been so more apt for you to have bought it in Liverpool.
Did they have the ferry back then?

Olivia Newton John 'A little more love'.

Ok let the abuse begin as first LP was 'Reggatta De Blanc'
I will expect to driven off this site forthwith

The Jean Genie - Bowie 1972, from my mate Aero for (probably) half a crown (remember those?) Followed by Goodbye Yellow Brick Road -Elton and After the Goldrush by Prelude. Still got them.

Oh Jesus! Somebody help me. Tell me I'm not the only one whom honesty obliges to admit that it was Thunder in the Mountains by Toyah... All together now, with comedically exaggerated lisping...
'There's a motorway, hah!
It's a monument
To distant cities with distant cries'
I was 11 or 12 and it was bought for the princely sum of £1.49 from Todd's in Limerick.

Baggy Trousers - Madness
Don't Stand So Close To Me - The Police
9 to 5 - Sheena Easton (Yes, I know! Esther Rantzen has a lot to answer for, and not even a later dalliance with Prince could earn her a shred of credibility!)

Purchased from the local independent sweet / greetings cards / general tat shop in 1981, still open and run by the same couple and selling sweets, greetings cards and tat but alas, no longer fine pop records - or even Sheena Easton.

Behind the Green Door- Shakin Stevens
Can Can - Bad Manners

In mitigation, I actually wanted Ghost Town by the Specials but it had sold out

Bought on the same day from RS mcColl's in Kirkintilloch. My cousin had just given me an old record player and I needed something to play on it.

Devil Gate Drive - Suzi Quatro. I bought it in 1974,

First single was Jeepster by T.Rex on the Fly label. B/W Life's A Gas. Nice pic label of Marc and Mickey on the reverse. Bought with a 50p record token I got for my 11th birthday in 1971 (11/12 seems to be the age to purchase your first single with your own money). Bought from a clothes shop in Roehampton (Medfield Street) that also sold records at the back. I also purchased my first 12" from there also. The Who's Substitute B/W Pictures Of Lily and I'm A Boy. In a large Polydor sleeve. Which was nice.

Tokoloshe Man by John Kongos - around 1974 I think - brought from Woolies in Stoke

Amazingly it still exists on my ipod and is played regularly! His follow-up single was later used by Happy Mondays!

Not the first singles I owned or was given (probably Yellow Submarine, Sugar Sugar and a few sibling cast offs like Happy Jack, Long Tall Sally EP, Alternate Title (Randy Scouse Git,), Hippy Hippy Shake, Call Up The Troops (medley), Snoopy Vs The Red Baron, 5-4-3-2-1...) but the first I saw in a shop and went "I want that, can I have my pocket money please".

At the age of about 9 I adored T-Rex (the first album I owned which wasn't a "kiddies album" as T-Rex, Greatest Hits, the one with Marc sitting on a stuffed tiger).

I bought both singles together when out shopping with my Dad. There was a little record stand at whatever shop it was - possibly a supermarket - and both were in the rack, one being in the charts at the time, the other reduced and being sold off cheap (thruppence or something ridiculous!) - hence buying both together.

So that would have been... 1972? 1973? My Guinness Book of hit Singles is upstairs and frankly I can't be bothered to look it up!!

Edit: OK, it was March 1973 - that's what Wikipedia's for after all, isn't it?

A song I still love to this day. Bought from "Play Inn" in Eccles.

My second single: "Baa Baa Black Sheep" by The Singing Sheep (really some bloke dicking about with a sampler). I thought it was amazing at the time - even the B-side, "Rock Around The Flock". Time wasn't as kind to that record though.

1973 I think, saw them perform it on Crackerjack friday teatime, gathered together 50p and first thing saturday down to the 'Top Ten' record shop for the purchase. As I recall, Crackerjack used to have a good slot for bands, as well as having Lesley Crowther, Peter Glaze and the other one signing hits of the day as part of the final sketch.

By pure coincidence two of my first three single purchases were about dropping nuclear bombs. What does that say about me as a nine year old in South Australia - and I'd never even heard of Maralinga at that time!(look it up...)

First purchase - Doug Ashdown's 'The Day They Freed The Noise' (On the day they freed the noise / There were scarlet coated boys / Marching down the village thoroughfare / We were there weren't we brother , we were there')Can't believe I still remember the words!

Second purchase - The Archies - 'Sugar Sugar' (My god wasn't Betty a fox!)

Third purchase - Russell Morris 'The Real Thing' (Ended with a Japanese choir singing as their city was nuked...later used in Australia as a Coca Cola theme!!)

on cassette tape 1979 I was 12 and on holiday in London.

We didn't have a record player chez Gramsci so singles were out of the question - for many years.

First single - bought from 'Boots the Chemists' - in 1981

Didn't really know about The Specials at the time - thought Fun Boy Three were a kids band - they were always on TISWAS, with Bananarama.

Just played it now - still has a certain 'Waitsian' charm about it.

Went on to purchase the infinitely more hip - 'Don't you want me' ,'It must be love' singles that year

Took them to the School Disco that Christmas - along with my mums Julio Inglesias 'Begin the Beguine' single (in retrospect my mum wrting my name on aforementioned single if it got lost wasn't such a good idea!)

"Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" - it started a lifetime devotion, the type organisations like the Catholic Church could only dream about.

Theme from Clint Eastwood-featuring late 50s/early 60s TV western. About 1960, I think. Was about 6 at the time. Bought for me by my mum from old-style 'proper' record shop (with turntable on the counter!) in Breck Road, Liverpool. Played it on a record player that was home-made for me by my Dad. Followed, incongrously enough, by 'Pinky and Perky's Party Sing-Song'

Age 9 or 10 and from Scene and Heard in Barnsley, which was a couple of doors down from the much missed Casa Disco, if I remember correctly.

My mum had bought me ex-juke box singles already, but this was the first one that I took her to the shop and demanded. All the kids in my class decided we were getting a single and we split into two camps - half of us getting Pop Musik, the other half Dance Away by Roxy Music.

The Sweet - Blockbuster. I THINK this was 1972 but I do remember that my Mum gave me the money - I told her I was going to buy an Elton John single and have felt guilty for the last 36 years.

Im cool innit. I was about 6

Can't quite remember which came first:

Telstar by The Tornados
Little Donkey by Nina and Frederik

The Jesus of Cool giveth and he taketh away....

don't remember the year, but i was young enough that i was actualy with my mum and younger brother when i bought it (brother bought so lonely by the police)

...in that my first album purchase came before my first 45 purchase. It was late summer 1970, Edmonton, Canada. The album was Hey Jude, Capitol N. America's catch-all comp of songs that hadn't made it onto any previous N American Beatles LP. Everything from Can't Buy Me Love to the titular Hey Jude to the wonderful Don't Let Me Down. I was eight and not completely hip to the kooky chronology or the label politics; I just thought "Wow, what a neat bunch of songs by the Beatles."

The first 45, a couple of weeks later, was Gimme Dat Ding by The Pipkins. Co-written, I had no idea at the time, by the father of a future Stroke (Albert Hammond) and a man I would much later come to consider one of the coolest alive (Lee Hazlewood). The song itself? An indefensible piece of novelty piffle. But let me repeat: I was eight. Beatles to Pipkins struck me as a perfectly natural progression.

But it was sung by the legend that is/was Tony Burrows, cue interminable posts about how many times he was on TOTP in one night in different guises.
"The father of a future Stroke....." If that is what he has come to, he may as well have one. Sheeez!

The Hazlewood who co-wrote Gimme Dat Ding was not the godlike Lee but one Mike. Sorry about that, Mike. That'll teach me to rely on decades-old memory. Sorry about what I said about your song, too, but hey, it's how I feel. Once, though, I did deem it worthy of 98 cents, and that's got to count for something.

Blondie, Durham Woolworths, 1978?

Man, I rocked. Then blew it all by getting into Poodle-Haired Heavy Metal for a scarily long time.

By Big Audio Dynamite. But I already quite an extensive 12" collection by then. So I think the first actual single I boughth may have been either West End Girls by Pet Shop Boys (Shep Pettibone Mix), We Close Our Eyes by Go West (Total Overhang Mix), or New Order's Blue Monday. I can never remember the actual order...

1963 - bought it myself aged 11 in either Waterlooville (a 'town' so crap it makes Whitehaven look wonderful) or Portsmouth (as above, a simple violent people...) from an electrical shop when such such emporia used to flog vinyl as well as Hoovers - can't recall the name. Hank Marvin rocks!

I was 9 and have no idea what possessed me.

but it was Star Trekkin' by The Firm, I'm mortified to admit.

"I Feel Fine", aged 12/13, years after original 1964 release. Probably set in train the lifetime habits of a serial music-miser, and a tendency to latch onto last year's or last decade's thing.

Choice of purchase venue probably a consequence of austerity-era-hangover views of my parents (we'd just started smuggling "pop music" into our classical-and-jazz-only household - nil exposure to it beforehand).

Graduated to reduced 35p(?) unwanted, chart-time-expired, & promo stock in the new shops, even some full-price items in time (shock horror!). Particularly so in the punk era. A goodly sprinkling of embarrassing purchases along the way.

Wish I'd bought all those 35p EMI-label copies of "Anarchy in the UK" from Menzies, but hindsight's a wonderful thing. Did find a Syd Barrett single in the same junkshop, though.