...I think it was either Waking Hours by Del Amitri or Club Classics Vol 2 by Soul II Soul, both on casette from a record shop in Ashby De La Zouch aged about 11 or 12. I haven't listened to either for years but I imagine I'd probably still find something to like in both.

on 7 inches of vinyl by Glen Campbell and Bobby Gentry. Legendarily effective snogging record for slow dances at parties after industrial quantities of cider had been imbibed.

Olivers Army by EC was the single and Faith by The Cure first album bought with my own hard earned. Would have been 12 years old and funded this through my underage paper round (strong work ethic though).

Which I still like, but I have little love for the rest of their canon.
Followed by L.A. Woman/The Doors, which is still in my top 10 of records to replace if ever the unthinkable.
Both shortly after their release.

'The Chicken Song' by Spitting Image
'Touchy' by Aha
'Camoflauge' by Stan Ridgway
'Star Trekkin' by The Firm (I think)

by Adam and the Antz was my first single. First Album was Star Wars And Other Space Movie Themes. And Prince's Around The World In A Day was the first CD. First Download was I Predict A Riot by Kaiser Chiefs. All bought shortly after release. I still listen to the Prince.

Single - Lovin' You Ain't Easy by Pagliaro.

Album - T. Rex's Electric Warrior.

For many years the first track that had to be played on a new turntable was Rip This Joint by The Rolling Stones, this continued with the advent of CDs but I'd just about grown out of it by the time I got the iPod last year.

in defence of my precocious taste, I should admit that it was also the coolest record I bought for the next decade.

Every Breathe You Take - The Police

Walked every where to find it, finally got it on 7" from WH Smith

Chalky

Terrible Love Songs Blog

First album was Pocketful of Kryptonite by The Spin Doctors. I loved the song Two Princesses on MTV. I got my mum (she claims I conned her) into giving me £10 for it. I paid the other 99p myself.

The first CD paid for all by myself was No Remorse by Motorhead. I was in Our Price and for the first time I took a look at the CD section. The Motorhead CD stood out for two reasons. 1: Everything was about £17 while it was only £9. 2: I noticed that the other CDs usually only had ten or so tracks on them while No Remorse had 19 songs on it (it was a Best Of, although it didn't mention this on the packaging).

Do I still listen to them? I gave my Spin Doctors CD away. Years later I bought their Best of for £4 out of curiosity. The tracks from Pocketful of Kryptonite are pretty good, the rest of it is a bit so-so. It's on my iPod but it rarely ever gets listened to. No Remorse is also on my iPod. I like Motorhead but I'm not fanatical about them. It rarely gets listened to.

I've never bought a single as I think they're pointless.

Was the first LP I owned, given to me as a birthday present by my parents. An excellent collection that stands the test of time: Tears Of A Clown, War, Ball Of Confusion, Ain't No Mountain High Enough, and several other essential Motown singles. I loved the album then, and still do.

The first album I bought was Led Zeppelin II, which still sounds classic from start to finish.

were

Band Of Gold - Freda Payne
Electric Warrior - T.Rex

...I seem to remember the first single I bought was The Beatles' 'Real Love' in Asdas around 1996 or so- I was about 8 at the time, I guess. I still like it a lot, and 'Free As A Bird' for that matter.

However, I'd been buying or listening to albums via the library for a while before, and I never was much of a singles person- first album I remember buying myself was Genesis' 'Selling England By The Pound' when I was about 6 or 7- and it remains my favourite album. I also listened to Beatles/Stones/Elvis/Bowie albums I loaned from libraries around that time. Grew up hearing a lot of 60s/70s rock so I just inherited that from my parents and the radio, I guess.

Because They're Young.
Because I'm old.

First single: Abba's Super Trouper, from Our Price in Northampton.

First album: No-one ever believes me, but it was Raw Power by Iggy & The Stooges. The reason I bought it was that it was listed in a very early issue of Kerrang! as being an album that no home should be without, so I picked up a Nice Price version of the album from Woolies. Unfortunately, I found the record absolutely un-listenable, and shelved it for about five years before giving it anther go. Fool.

First CD: What's the Matter Here? CD single by 10,000 Maniacs.

First download: No idea.

And I still like all the records.

twas the might geoff love, orchestra therof...playing either great war themes or great western themes.

still get goosepimples to the theme fom the dambusters & magnificent 7

first single - "do you want to touch me" by gary glitter, to which my then 6 year old brother would sing the additional lines "where? under the underwear..." much to the mirth of the dolly family. If we had known then what we know now!

One of these I think:

'Caroline' by the Quo, 'See My Baby Jive' by Wizzard or
'Come On Feel The Noize' by Slade.

All pretty great and poptastic.

Album, maybe Elton John 'Greatest Hits' - the first one he did, and possibly the best. Or could have been Ringo Starr 'Goodnight Vienna', which I probably bought because of the sleeve picture based on 'The Day The Earth Stood Still' movie. Then again it might have actually been that album of bird sounds I purchased for 99p on the Golden Guinea label.

Pamela Pamela by Wayne Fontana. January 1967, I was five years old (soon to be six). I wanted Purple Haze by The Jimi Hendrix Experience (which was in the charts at the same time) but I didn't know the proper name of the group or record. All I was sure about was that he was some loon that played the guitar with his teeth - I'd seen him do it that week on Top Of The Pops. That was good enough for me - but my Dad (who was bankrolling my first foray into vinyl purchase) thought otherwise. I was persuaded into getting Wayne Fontana - he had been on TOTP the same week and I remember that he sat upon a stool and looked and sounded awfully sensible.

I still own the record and play it on occasion. It's a beautiful song, however the (excellent) b-side has turned out to be something of a latter day northern soul stomper.

Album - a soundalike Winnie The Pooh soundtrack on MFP. Not too good. First non-novelty full price pop album - A Collection Of Beatles' Oldies. March 1971. That's more like it.

First music acquired: 'Sladest' by Slade on cassette for 5th or 6th birthday
First single bought: 'Get It' by (The Amazing) Darts - I think it was 59p
First album bought: Can't remember but it might have been 'Discovery' by ELO.

Am I still employed after these confessions?

Having a once a week sunday paper round (huge bag due to Sunday Times etc) gave me the monetary muscle (and physical muscle!) to buy the following as my first self-financed purchases:

Album: JAPAN - QUIET LIFE (bought in 1980, after reading about them in Sounds mag, and still oving them actually!)

Single: MADNESS - ONE STEP BEYOND (nuttiness was all around at my school then, didn't tell anyone about the Japan LP purchase mind!)

.. and the first record bought for me (birthday 1977) was Geoff Love and his Orchestra plays themes from Sci-Fi films and TV - i loved it, especially as it had the recently seen Star Wars tune on it!!

I think my first CD was Depeche Mode's 'Strangelove' on single CD, and this was bought even though i didnt have a CD player at the time (afforded one a year later in 1988, how thoroughly modern of me in the 80's!!)

First single I bought with my own money, saved from the paper round was Can The Can by Suzi Quatro. First album was an MFP Beach Boys compilation which I thought was great until our next door neighbour rubbished it and gave me a copy of the offical best of Beach Boys.

MFP and Hallmark Top of the Pops/Hot Hits albums were big in our house, all the hits recorded by sessioners. All for 10 bob.

..Ihave to admit the first record I bought was 'Saved By The Bell' by Robin Gibb. The first album I bought, however, was 'Deja Vu' by CSNY, so I guess that saves my face a little!

First three singles (in order of purchase) were:

Tap Turns On The Water by CCS (One of Alexis Korner's side projects, they also did the TOTP version of Whole Lotta Love)

Maggie May by Rod Stewart (because it was a stonking good song)

I'm Still Waiting by Diana Ross (because Norah Sloane liked it and I thought she might be impressed. She wasn't.)

First couple of albums were:

Imagine - John Lennon
Who's Next - The Who

Can't remember what was third - although I could find it by looking on the little stickers I put inside each cover, with my name, the number of the album in my collection and where I bought it from - a habit I only managed to break when I got to about 20.

First single was Chant No. 1 by Spandau Ballet and my first album was Kings Of The Wild Frontier by Adam & The Ants and they would have been bought when I was 9. The album was on tape, of course, both bought from Boots! I haven't got it any more but I did download the remastered version a few days ago. I've still got the 7" and I'd stand by both of them.

I still like Chant No.1 and I still like the singles from KOTWF
but need to listen to the whole thing again really...

single was Kids In America by Kim Wilde.

The first album I owned was Parallel Lines. I think. Although there may have been some kind of Star Wars type album with the soundtrack played by some orchestra from Chicago or something and some stereo laser effects involved...but I'm not sure if that was first or second.

The first CD was Patti Smith's Horses.

The first 12" single was Communication by Spandau Ballet.

Apart from the strange Star Wars thingy I still listen to all of these pretty regularly.

I bought Wordy Rappinghood by the tom tom club mainly because they didn't have the "another one bites the dust" by clint eastwood and general saint in WH Smiths which what I went in for!
I made the film below in homage to this, sort of.
As to lp's there was a voucher in the NME giving you £2 off either the smiths, U2, bronski beat and I think Depeche mode so with some birthday vouchers I bought U2 WAR.

Is There Something I Should Know? by Duran Duran. Good song I think and I'm going to see them next month.

Album was Different Light by The Bangles which is also pretty decent.

bought Ride a White Swan with a 10 shilling gift voucher from Boots record department in Glasgow

...by The Boomtown Rats.

Mine was "Big Western Movie Themes" which I bought with consolidated Boots tokens after Christmas when I was about 9 - I was big on the theme from "The Good The Bad and The Ugly" which was a hit single!

The first LP I actually owned was "Hard day's night" bought for me by my Mum after we saw the film. Ha!

My younger brother, Simon, had the first two Nik Kershaw albums (Human Racing and The Riddle) on cassette. We listened to them exclusively and invented dances based on our interpretations of the lyrics for each song, whose true meanings we, more often than not, failed to grasp. The political overtones of Cloak & Dagger were completely lost on us. As far as we were concerned it was an excuse for us to don our dressing gowns and engage in wild, imaginary knife fights.

When Nik Kershaw's third album - Radio Musicola - was released in 1986, his popularity was on the wane. I remember hearing him being interviewed on BBC Radio Kent and mentioning that he had a new record out. A few days later I spotted the cassette in the Southend High Street Branch of WH Smiths. The purchase is so burned into my mind that I could lead you to more or less the exact spot in the store where I first picked up the empty cassette case and asked my mum if I could buy it.

With hindsight Radio Musicola was a slight dip in quality after two fairly robust 80s pop albums. Of the ten songs I think there are only three that I could still bear to listen to: When A Heart Beats and then possibly LABATYD and the album coda Violet To Blue.

The title track is a rather dour and shapeless affair; an unlikely third single, prescient in its attack on identikit corporate pop music. A couple of the songs dealt with tabloid intrusion. Even then, aged 12/13, I found Kershaw's social commentary ham-fisted and simplistic. What the Papers Say begins:

"I read it in the papers
it must be true
It said "girl gives birth to alien boy"
but do we see a photo of this bundle of joy - no, no."

I eventually bequeathed my copy of Radio Musicola to my brother, who took it with him when he left home. After the tape wore-out he spent a small fortune on a second-hand CD copy. Sometimes I wish that I still had the album, although if I did I don't think that I could bring myself to play it. I will defend Nik Kershaw with the last breath in my body, however his songs are intertwined with my childhood. To go back to them now could only end in disappointment and the onset of a dreadful melancholy for everything that I have lost since then.

I remember when I was about four, hounding my Mum to take me to buy a copy of Mull of Kintyre. But the first single and LP that I bought with my pocket money were from Dukebox Records in Liverpool - I was eight:

Single = 'High Fidelity' by The Kids from Fame. The cooler song would have been 'Fame', which I still love - I presume they didn't have it in (at least that's my excuse...).

LP = England 1982 World Cup Record; the best bits being Kevin Keegan's 'Head Over Heels In Love' and Mike Read's 'Bulldog Bobby'.

And much later:

CD = 'Electronic' by Electronic

7" Kings of the Wild Frontier- Adam and the Ants-not been played for years, but I did see the drummers of Burundi a couple of years ago if that counts....

Album The Hurting-TFF-occasionally listen to the better tracks (some of the filler is woeful-Ideas as Opiates especially) and are long due a Word feature, hem hem.

CD-Late adopter-Ocean Beach-Red House Painters-very rarely played nowadays...

...I ended up with a tape of Geoff Love's stuff when I got into Ennio Morricone's music- was not impressed, nor with Hugo Montenegro's version of 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly'- took all the strangeness out and turned them into fairly standard fare. I also have a best of Morricone which for some unfathomable reason has a Geoff Love version of 'For A Few Dollars More' on it.

OK, there's comments above about youth, now for the senior moment.

My first was Lollipop by the Mudlarks. Purchased with hard saved pocket money in one of those records shops at the back of a bike shop. Mine was in Hounslow High Street.

Has anybody ever explained why records and bikes were so often sold from the same shops in the fifties and sixties?

First single bought was Tears For Fears "Sowing The Seeds Of Love" from Woolworths in Grimsby.
First album was Billy Joel "Greatest Hits" double LP from Fox's(?) in Doncaster.
Lord knows what my first CD was, strangely not as memorable as my vinyl expeditions

Worringly, I seem to recall that the second of Robin Gibb's 'warblings' was called, if my memory serves me right, 'August, September' (or maybe that was the 'B' side of 'Saved By The Bell'?

My first single was 'Too young' by Donny Osmond, who must have been about the same age as me. I bought it from an electrical shop in Bushey Heath - they had a shoebox full of singles on a shelf near the back, behind the washing machines.

The single didn't last much longer than my affection for Donny's music, but I've still got my second purchase, 'Hellraiser' by The Sweet, and it's a damn fine one too. It's got a great B side called 'Burning', IIRC.

My first self-purchased album was almost certainly one of those 'Top Of The Pops' compilations with a dolly bird in a bikini on the cover, where session musicians covered the hits of the day, badly. I went through a phase of buying them (I think they came out monthly), usually from Woolies in Watford.

First singles bought were either.....drum roll please....Livin' on a Prayer by New Jersey's finest, Bon Jovi...or...Africa by Toto...
In my defence Livin' on a Prayer was a school disco classic "Ohhhhh, we're half way there, Ohhhhhhh, Livin' on a prayer"...air guitar....repeat....

There is no defence for Toto.

first single was Judy Teen by Cockney Rebel.
first album was also a god awful Top Of The Pops covers record.Think it had a "dolly bird" on the front playing tennis in a string dress as they are want to do.

First single - We are glass, Gary Numan
first album - The smurfs

Cliff Richard and The Young Ones' version of Living Doll (leave me alone, it was for charity) or The Art Of Noise and Duane Eddy's version of Peter Gunn? Because they're the first two singles I bought with my own money. I think. First album was, I think, Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Shocking to admit that I was so embarrassed about my music tastes in the 80s (ironically enough, seeing as it's the 80s themselves that were far worse) that I bought novelty singles so that no one really knew that I just liked all my parents' stuff.

The first album I bought was 25 Golden Disney Hits, from HMV in King's Walk in Gloucester, I'm pretty sure I wanted it to get my hands on a copy of I Wanna Be Like You-oo-oo. The first 'proper' albums I got my feelthy little mitts on were Complete Madness and Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band.
And the first single was Back In The Ussr on a disc with Twist and Shout, which is pretty cool I think - that one came from a record store in Weston Super Mare. I hope selective memory's not playing a part in that, I'm pretty sure it's true!

That was my first single. I think my first alblum was one of those Top of the Pops covers records complete with Hot Pants wearing covergirl. It had covers of Slade's gudbye to Jane on it and C-Moon by Wings.
First proper alblum might well have been T-Rex "Ride a White Swan" (not sure if that was what it was called. I think it was a cheap "music for pleasure" release.

... replicas by tubeway army.
my sister had just got a school trip to york and to even things out my dad took me to (the now long-gone) tudor records on walton vale in liverpool and told me I could have any record i wanted. I'd seen Numan on TOTP doing Are Friends Electric and loved it so it was a no-brainer for an impressionable 12-year-old. Still think it's his best work.

First Single
"Please Don't Tease" Cliff and the Shadows

First Album
"Sgt Pepper" The Beatles

Do they make singles anymore??

Last Album purchased

"Supersession" Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, Steve Stills

This is worse that the randomiser, but I'll do it anyway:

- First 7" (that's got me dated): "Hoots Mon" by Lord Rockinghams XI - aka Jack Good's session band

- First LP: The Rolling Stones by The Rolling Stones (see the letters page of Edition 49 for the full story on that one)

- Latest download: Nine Lives by Steve Winwood

BTW Bingham; Good buy; that's a real blast from the past and I still have the original vinyl.

Gavin

Wizzard: 'I wish it could be Christmas Every day' - 1973, according to Wikipedia.

First Album: ... no, I can't ...

"Green Door"-Shakin Stevens-still a good single,
Album-used to be into soundtracks and the Radiophonic workshop when I was young, so it was a Dr Who album, with some of the best incidental music from the series.
Tape- Queen A Night At The Opera.

by Joe Brown & The Bruvvers

First album - School's Out, Alice Cooper 1972. Still love that record.

"9 To 5" by Sheena Easton! My aunt came with me to Woolworths on that momentous occasion. What's funny is that soon after I heard "Ashes To Ashes" and that was it!! Sheena was replaced by Ziggy forever! Still like the song though!

Original Soundtrack, actually it's a gem!

by Hot Chocolate.
Not sure about first album - though I have a definite memory of a Top Of The Pops album with Native New Yorker and New Kid In Town on it which I played a lot.

My first ever single was "Ant Rap" by Adam and the Ants, with the Christmas Nativity Calender cover and my first album was "Flash Gordon OST" by Queen.

We always had records in the house but the first I ever brought with money I had earned myself was the Soundtrack to "That'll Be The Day"

I got it for "Rock On" by David Essex, I remember I didn't like all the oldies. "What's this stuff?"

Still love Rock On but some of the oldies like "Chantilly Lace" grew on me pretty quickly.

Was my first album, purchased in Bristol in 1971 (along with one of the then new 1:48 scale Airfix models - it may have been the Lancaster bomber). First single was Ball Park Incident by Wizzard, which still stands up I think. I remember it skipped, as did its replacement; record company QA was non-existent in the 70s, and nearly every single purchase I made entailed a return trip to Boots.

With a spendimg money surplus, due to my paper round empire, I bought a Glenn Miller band album (yes, Glenn Miller, not Steve Miller) and Rockin' Robin by Michael Jackson. Honest. I've since grown up to buy Steely Dan, so maybe a weird evolution there...

First album given - 'Going Places - Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass (well, i was learning the trumpet at the time...)

First single given - 'Sweet Hitch Hiker' Creedence Clearwater Revival (blackmailed my brother thru Mum - 'He promised me a record and he gave me socks (sob sob)!'

First single bought - 'Metal Guru' - T.Rex

First album bought with own hard-earned - 'Bolan Boogie' - T.Rex

...and thus it began...

My first single was The Specials' "Ghost Town"

Always loved ska, always will.

Sideshow by Barry Biggs in December 1976.

First single I ever bought was Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood when I was about nine. I loved it then and I love it now.

First album I ever bought (as in paid for myself cos I got my mum and dad to get me Welcome To The Pleasuredome and technically speaking that was my first album) was Dream Into Action by Howard Jones. Less cool I feel and not even as good as Human's Lib which is of course a thing of wonder.

...in his day. Still is. Apparently.

The Green Shades Of Val Doonican

The Z-Cars theme on the Embassy label from Woolies, by some bunch of anonymous session musicians.

I think the first LP I ever bought was "A Quick One", by the Who. Played it to death....

I bought two at once, Beatties Birmingham, Jack In The Box by The Moments and Daddy Cool by Boney M.

I've never admitted this before. I've always said Hotel California. I'm sick of living a lie.

My first single was "Antmusic" by Adam & The Ants on its first release - a song I still love to this day. I think their "Kings Of The Wild Frontier" album was the first album I bought myself too, although I'd received several others for Christmas and birthdays previously (including "Super Womble", I recall, the title track of which is now on repeat play in my head, the swine). Sadly I think any musical cred Adam Ant gave me soon departed as the second single I remember buying was "Baa Baa Black Sheep" by The Singing Sheep - basically a bloke who sampled a sheep bleating and played the old song with it. Terrible.

My first were albums - either Shakin' Stevens' 'Shaky' (Pink jacket on cover. Nice) or Adam and The Ants' 'Prince Charming' which is only 2% cooler but I think I still have 'Stand and Deliver' on the iPod. A classic you can't deny. There's no Shaky on there. I think the first one I bought with my 'own money' 'up town' was possibly Level 42's 'Running in the Family' sometime in 1987 or so?, which is possibly 1% cooler than the other two. My taste got better, honest!

Flash Gordon Soundtrack by Queen...still love it and had the wedding march from it at my wedding. Life's dream realised.

probably abacab by genesis...approx age 6 or 7...2 older brothers with the genesis thing, i have just been listening to them again recently in fact, for first time in ages, thanks to ipod convenience...some good some bad, only a couple of good songs on abacab but i did love it at the time...

The Drifters - You're more than a number in my little red book

and

David Soul - Don't give up on us baby.

I was seven.

My first foray to by a record, with my own cash, and thence to get the bus home to a turn table fast as possible was the charming cover of Streets Of London, by non other than the pseudo-punk Anti-Nowhere League. What a pleasant surprise it was to find the expletive littered So What on the B-side.

First single (got lost in a move):

First EP (still got it):

First album (still got it):

(I obviously felt so fine I wanted it twice.)

This Ole House by Shakin' Stevens.

Not the best, admittedly, but it stoked a huge interest I developed in later life for 50's/60's obscurish doo-wop and rock'n'roll.

The primary school I attended actually banned Shakin' Stevens dancing in the playground out of fear for our poor little toesies.

The first record I ever bought was T.Rex's Electric Warrior, not long after it first came out. Still listen to it; still really like it; still love that cover.
Cool, huh?
Mind you, the 2nd record I ever bought was Mungo Jerry's You Don't Have To Be In The Army, which at least had a couple of decent choons on it, and beats bloody owning up to prog-rock anyday....7 years old and listening to Genesis???? You might as well have written on your forehead "I expect to never lose my virginity anyway, so I'm going to listen to prog-rock"!!!

Man those Pans People chicks are HOT. Anyway, my first LP was an MFP copy of "Ride A White Swan" by T.Rex. My parents didn't really like music although my dad used to sing "Old Man River" in basso profundo and my mum liked Jack Jones ( not the TUC leader).