First among equals
Random i-Poddage on commuter train this morning, and, as often happens, a strange coincidence; the first two tracks were also the first single, and first track from the first album, I ever purchased.
The reason I know this is because they still take pride of place in my (rather more eclectic than it may at first appear) collection. Would be interested to know what your first single and album purchases were, where they were from, why and have you still got them?
Mine;
Ace of Spades - Motorhead 7" vinyl single
The red cover with the card emblem. Purchased from Alan's market stall in Chelmsford, circa 1982? Always thought it strange that the previous owner had the same initials and surname as my mum (she's never admitted to it). Had to have it if only for '...and that's the way I like it baby, I don't wanna live forever!'
AC/DC - Back in Black vinyl album
Bought from the same second-hand emporium. A classic in any sense of the word, and perfect for maximum volume on the school bus to drown out the girls playing Wham on the back seat.
Alan's stall also did great cassette bootlegs; I remember being able to purchase a gig about a week after it occurred, or being able to ask him if his tape recorder was going to be at the Hammy Odeon in a week's time. Good old days.
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Eee, the smell (or was it taste?) of madelines...
The first purchases with my own money and of my own volition, so ignores the old Beatles singles (wonderful that they were) bought for Christmas by doting aunts...
First single:
Tap Turns On The Water by CCS. No idea why, probably peer pressure, but a fine tune nonetheless that I was delighted to find on iTunes the other month. I liked the line 'see your sister in the raw' as well, even though I don't have a sister. Probably especially because I don't have a sister. Good job really. Closely followed by 'I'm Still Waiting' by Diana Ross (because Nora Sloane liked it and I liked Nora Sloane) and Maggie May by Rod, because it's pretty bloody good, actually.
First Album - Imagine by John Lennon. Bit of a Beatles hangover but it could have been a lot worse. Closely followed by Who's Next, which is still one of my favourite albums. Cracking taste for a twelve year old! Number three was, I think, Deep Purple's Machine Head. And then it went steadily downhill for a few years (ELP, Yes) until the punk wars began in earnest.
Not counting Back Home...
...the first single bought with my own money was Hot Love by T. Rex.
First album A Collection Of Beatles Oldies. In fact, nearly all of my early album purchases were Best ofs by 60s bands: Big Hits High Tide And Green Grass/Through The Past Darkly, Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy and loads of those MFP a couple of hits and loads of B sides/filler compilations.
Comps
Was that a conscious decision, the purchase of compilations?
It never really occurred to me until later, when I'd decided in general what it was I liked or disliked. Also (and I think this still holds true to day, all other things being equal) the majority of compilations have 60-70% quality and the rest is sub-standard or filler. What made you choose that route?
In a word, yes...
...Seeing A Hard Day's Night on Boxing Day 1970 was the point where I realised that music reached the parts that other popular culture didn't. After that I started listening to Pick Of The Pops, watching Top Of The Pops and taking an interest in the charts. However, much as I liked loads of current (early 70s) stuff, nothing really hit the spot the way the Fabs did, so alongside buying Beatles' records, I started checking out their contempories, and found the mid 60s pop to be more interesting than early to mid 70s pop, and crucially loads of it was available on albums that cost not much more than a single.
Comps
Yep, makes a lot of sense.
Thinking about it now, I suppose it was more peer pressure with me. I was lucky(?) enough that my first real friend at school was also the 'First year senior muso' and so when he recommended something, I checked it out.
Cue a teenage life of heavy rock almost to the exclusion of all other genre's, and my twenties spent making up for lost time. If anything, I over-reached in terms of variety, and it's only in the last decade or so that I've accepted certain styles are the ones that excite me. Your route suggests an earlier flowering of musical common sense; check it all out first, then settle in for the ride.
Spookily AC/DC are involved for me too.
First single AC/DC Hells Bells
First album Blondie Parallel Lines
Good choices
Warms the cockles of yer 'art, doesn't it, to be able to look back and think your first choices more than stand the test of time?
Aye
They set me off on a wonderful journey, that's for sure.
Back in 79......
First single bought for my eighth birthday in March 79 was Elvis Costello's Olivers Army. Had to wait until Xmas 79 for my first LP, Squeeze - Cool For Cats. Still love both artists with a passion still.
Taste
No duffers there Steve. In fact, no real duffers at all yet, which is interesting in itself.
Have we identified a sub-genre of Word readers whose taste was classy from the get-go? Anyone out there got The Nolans and Crystal Gayle?
A Game of Two Halves
My first two album purchases stand up well today:
Sparks Propaganda
Cockney Rebel Best Years of Our Lives
First two singles don't stand up so well:
Mud Dynamite
Rubettes Sugar Baby Love
So I suppose even then I was more of an album kind of guy...
Cards on the table, no self-censorship at all;
...and definitely not cool in the least;
First "Band" single and album purchases were as follows;
Single - The Flying Lizards ; Money
Album - Queen ; Flash Gordon OST
First actual single
Theme from Blakes Seven (specially ordered, no less, from my local jewellers, who also functioned as the town's only record retailer until Woolies moved in)
*dies of sci-fi geek shame*
Always
fancied Cally.
The minute I read your reply, I started humming the theme tune to Blakes 7. How do we do that?
I was going to say that purchasing the Flash OST was worse, but I seem to remember buying the Highlander OST for Who Wants To Live Forever?.
Dies of 'Tepid Queenage'
Et, voila.
We need to know
is Random i-Poddage a relative of Genesis P?
2nd cousin
thrice removed...
Who He?
Lovin' You Ain't Easy by Pagliaro was the 7-inch
Electric Warrior - T Rex for the album.
And, Stephen G, there's nothing wrong with Mud's Dynamite.
There's
not a whole lot wrong with the Rubettes either, surely?
Nice one eggman!!!
First single purchases of my own were 'Shapes of things' by the Yardbirds and 'Keep on runnin' by the Spencer Davis group - still love them both - I bought them in same year but not sure if i bought them at same time.
Like one of the other bloggers it was a few years after before I bought my first album which was either Deep Purple - Child in Time, Free - Fire and Water or a Steppenwolf album with born to be wild and magic carpet ride on it. I honestly cant remember which was first but they are all good so am proud to nominate all of them. The howlers came later although never that many to be honest.Pavlovs Dog stands out as one that never got played and later some overblown American dross like Hootie and the blowfish and Counting Crows oh and right up to date Joanna Newsom.
Throwing Shapes
I love Shapes of Things, but have to admit I came to it via Gary Moore's rather tame cover on his Victims of the Future album (which was mid-80's dross except for Empty Rooms). Can't argue with the rest either.
BUT... why has everyone got such a downer on the Crows? I have to say I've been a fan since August... I admit they can be a little earnest at times, but at heart they're a good, solid rock band with some great melodies and above-par intelligence lyrics. I know they're not the Beatles, but if everyone was... What am I missing?
The only Newsom I've heard did indeed sound like the bastard offspring of Bjork post-Sugarcubes, Tori Amos pre-solo piano diva (and did anyone actually work out why Tori, ahem, 'k'ouldn't read?) and the noise my boiler makes when it fires up on cold mornings.
For those who feel like supporting her, what is it about her that makes you want to sit and listen to a whole album?
Apologies
Nowt wrong with falsetto from 'neath an outsize cap
Tchaikovsky and Beethoven
First single for me was "Night of Fear" by The Move, purchased in 1967, I was just coming up to my eighth birthday. What a brilliant single, Roy Wood "borrows" the riff from the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky. My first album was Space Oddity by David Bowie (the reissue in 1972), an underrated album with some great tracks on it (An Occasional Dream, Letter To Hermione, Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud). Incidentally, Roy Wood isn't the only one to "borrow" from the classics, Brian James does it on New Rose by The Damned, the riff sounds very much like Beethovens fifth.
Erratum
My earlier posting should of course have read Deep Purple In Rock and not the name of the best track on the album.I was rather running away with myself!!
Started as I meant to go on
Never been cool and trendy, with all the must have music at the right time. And I started that way too.
First album: Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits
First single Queen 'Bohemian Rhapsody' (along with the rest of the country)
Actually that last one is misleading, writing first single implies there was a second. As I thought singles were a rip-off, my one and only single was 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. Could have been worse I suppose.
And yes, I can still sing along to every word of both records.
Oh Dear
The first single I owned was Club Tropicana by Wham. I got it in a free offer with a pair of Clarks shoes. I was very disappointed as I thought I was going to receive Bad Boys (but that doesn't make it any better does it?)
The first album I bought (excluding compilations) was August by Eric Clapton. I bought it after seeing The South Bank Show in 1987. The recent Clapton South Bank Show brought it all flooding back. It's possibly the worst album he's ever made but I rather enjoyed it as a ten year old.
Still like it like it la la like it
Sweet Caroline was my first 45 incher I believe, by the eternal Quo and I reckon it's alright still.
Album-wise not sure if it was a K-tel 20 original artists comp the only track that I recall being Albatross by F Mac or was it Goodnight Vienna by Ringo Starr - purely chosen because I liked the cover which was Ringo dressed as the astronaut from movie The Day the Earth Stood Still standing in front of his spaceship with the robot or something like that. Cover art used to influence my choices quite a bit then - must be a vinyl thing I guess. Not so much now.
Feels like confession...
First single: Abba - Take a Chance on Me
First Album: Gary Numan - The Pleasure Principle
Still stand by both - mainly because I loved the b-side to take a chance on me - I'm a Marionette
I look back now and see them as the first flagstones in a long, long path. Fair brings a tear of nostalgia to my eye, so it does...
First!
Pamela Pamela, by Wayne Fontana. January 1967, from a furniture-cum-electrical store in Cambridge. A great song, and an even greater b-side (Something Keeps Calling Me Back), one that is now highly prized amongst northern soul bods.
A Collection of Beatles Oldies. Sometime in 1969, from Boots The Chemist in Bury St Edmunds. A colossal collection of pre-Sgt Pepper 45s. Probably unbeaten in the Beatles compilation stakes - too much, I suppose, to ask that this should find its way on to CD?
Not too shabby
My first single was Both Ends Burning by Roxy Music which I bought on my 11th birthday in 1976 from the record department in the Co-Op in Fratton Road, Portsmouth. I bought it because I had seen them on Top of the Pops and rather liked Bryan Ferry's army-style shirt. That would make me a reasonably cool nipper, were it not for the fact that I also purchased the Jungle Book soundtrack album on the same day.
My first album proper however was Sgt Peppers, quickly followed by Led Zeppelin 2 and Dark Side, all bought on the advice of my older brother. Sgt Peppers is the only one I regret buying.
First
Hmmm... my first single (make that singles) with my own pocket-money was (were) T-Rex's 20th Century Boy and Children of the Revolution which was still sitting in the rack next to it. Not bad taste for an 8 year-old. We had this discussion at work a while back and no-one believed me on the basis that they were too conveniently cool in comparison to everyone else's Jive Bunnys, Rick Astleys and the like.
LPs are more difficult to place. It would have been one or more of the following... Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds, Jailbreak by Thin Lizzy and a double album of ELO 1 & 2 all of which were purchased within a few weeks of each other. That would have been a few weeks after WotW came out.
Ha ha
Andy, if you haven't already, you should join the blog on the Beatles; there are people there who'd love your Sgt. Pepper's comment.
As for the rest, Roxy was a very cool first choice, reasons notwithstanding, and what on earth is wrong with the Jungle Book. Best Disney animation ever.
Already added my two-peneth
Already added my two-peneth to the Beatles blog (management summary - they were good, I just don't like them). Nothing wrong per se with Jungle Book, just not very "cool" in comparison to Roxy.
A 45-incher, Sven?
Your turntable must have been something to behold.
Yeah
it really grew on me that record (oh dear).
When you moved on...
... to 78's, you had to move house.
I thangyow.