was one of those 'Top Of The Pops' compilations where musicians covered the latest hits. BBC musicians I suppose? I remember the Stone's "Miss You" was on it, with some guy doing what seemed like a pretty good Mick Jagger impersonation. But I was about ten at the time, so it might not have been.

The album that immediately takes me back to my formative years is The Clancy Brothers "Hearty and Hellish!" with my Dad trying to play along on his accordion.

Kraftwerk "Computer Love"

Anything by Lizzy will bring me back to when my older brother ruled the stereo.

(with Crazy Horses on it) - but my first real lp was We'd like to teach the World to Sing by the New Seekers.
The album that I really noticed 'taking me back' was Dare by the Human League which was the soundtrack to me leaving home.

The first album I got was Rainbow's Long Live Rock and Roll, but the one to send me back to 12 or so is AC/DC's Highway to Hell.

ELO - Out of the Blue

the Proustian rush album... Madness - Absolutely

When my Sister returned from Big Beat '64 she bought me a copy of "With The Beatles" still have it and it still sounds wonderful but the one that brings back all the confusion of hormone rush is "Ummagumma" the first album I bought with my own cash at the age of fourteen in 1970. Our English teacher loved the Floyd, I had a mad crush on her. Done deal.

Remember You're A Womble.

I was six.

(1) The Boomtown Rats - The Fine Art of Surfacing

(2) Mike Oldfield - Ommadawn

by Adam and the Ants.

(Although the first LP in my possession was Knight Gallery by The Barron Knights.)

with my own money, i.e. from birthday money and pocket money were bought in 1987 in a shop in Winchester. Two were devastatingly cool and the third was a guilty pleasure for this 11 year old:

Beastie Boys - Licensed To Ill
Run DMC - Raising Hell
and, ahem,
Swing Out Sister - It's Better To Travel

got was The Jungle Book soundtrack which takes me back to my formative years(i.e, have never really gown up). The first album I bought was The Who's Meaty Beaty, Big & Bouncy.

1 - Gary Numan - Pleasure Principle
2 - Siouxsie & Banshees - Juju - this takes me back because I spent hours deconstructing it over repeated listens - this is how I figured out about the different tracks for different instruments, overdubs etc, so it's the sound of my musical education.

Pot luck. Most of the next twenty were s**t. (Curse you NWOBHM!)

Tom Perdu:

Although with a different cover and certainly no supercool picture disc

The one where they are sitting on a park bench,takes me back

...rather than bought for me was Abba: The Album. I was four or five.

2 on the same day:

Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge over Troubled water
Steppenwolf - Cant remember which album but it had Magic Carpet ride and Born to be wild on it.

I might put together a playlist of just the tracks on this to see if I'm transported back to summer 1983...

was a 2nd hand copy of Disraeli Gears.

The first new album was Family's Anyway…

Edit; the one that takes me back is Roy Harper's Lifemask.

Pinups By David Bowie. God I was a fecking trendy 10 year old!

First time I ever asked for, and got, proper LPs off Santa.

Imagine by John Lennon and Who's Next by The Who.

I was a cool kid right from the off.

But the record that really transports me back to that time is T. Rex and Electric Warrior. Mike Hurst already had that so I had to get different albums off Father Christmas.

Electric Warrior - T.Rex

Here's the opener, Mambo Sun. Still sounds great today.

As for formative years. My aunt used to bring round her record player when she babysat. She played Tamla, the Stones and, my favourite, The Beatles. For my 5th birthday, she bought me With The Beatles. I still know all the words to this day and the one I loved the most was Little Child.

My first album? There were two, I think I got them on a family holiday. I'd have been about 5, they were The Proclaimers This Is The Story and the first Kylie album (where she wears a hat on the cover at a jaunty angle).

Not bad taste, five year old me.

Bought from Vibes in Bury (RIP) with a record token that Rachel Branch got me for my birthday.

Proustian rush album is Tellin' Stories by the Charlatans which takes me back to my 16th summer, the best summer ever.

gee ooh ooh!
gee ooh ooh!

The grammy nominated Kaja and the goo goos with their career defining White Feathers.

Possibly it was someone else who was grammy nominated - I get confused.

Showing my age, my first was a K-Tel complication called "20 Power Hits"
I know it sounds naff but it included many of the tunes I've since sought out elsewhere, such as
Alright Now - Free
Cindy Incidentally - The Faces
Frankenstein - Edgar Winter Group
Giving it All Away - Roger Daltry
Join Together - The Who
Free Electric Band - Albert Hammond
Elton John Both Crocodile Rock & Rocket Man bookending the album

And of course "...many, many, more!"

Just looked it up using the magic of t'internet rather than clambering about in the attic and actually the tracklisting is pretty damn good for this sort of thing - If you leave out Clifford T Ward

http://www.discogs.com/Various-20-Power-Hits/release/1426195

First real record? - Slade Alive!

Then nothing until Alice Cooper, School's Out,1972. Then followed by Pictures At An Exhibition, ELP, Christmas Holidays, 1972.

Eeeh, I've gone all nostalgic.

Elton John - Honky Chateau
Strawbs - Bursting At The Seams

Two albums take me right back, both by Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells and Ommadawn.

"Back Home Again" was the first my first album, but the one that probably still sums up what I really like (OK, some of it hasn't aged well) is the soundtrack to "That Summer!"

Track list: 1. Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll - Ian Dury 2. Spanish Stroll - Mink DeVille 3. (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea - Elvis Costello 4. She's So Modern - Boomtown Rats 5. New Life - Zones 6. Another Girl Another Planet - The Only Ones 7. Whole Wide World - Wreckless Eric 8. Because The Night - Patti Smith 9. Kicks - The Boomtown Rats 10. Rockaway Beach - The Ramones 11. Teenage Kicks - The Undertones 12. Do Anything You Wanna Do - Eddie & The Hot Rods 13. What A Waste - Ian Dury 14. I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass - Nick Lowe 15. Watching The Detectives - Elvis Costello 16. Blank Generation - Richard Hell & The Voidoids.

I recall buying it at the local newsagent in (I suppose) 1979/80. Never seen the film.

I had the LP for years, but I ended up leaving it with a lot of other stuff in my parents' loft. Prior to one of their moves, they took it (and most of my other vinyl) to a charity shop. That's life, I suppose.

This was my first:

I loved the way that "Don't Let the Sun Go Dwn on Me" went on for about 3 minutes before reaching its first chorus.

"The Four Tops Greatest Hits" or one of the early "Motown Chartbusters" albums. I know I had both but can't remember which I got first.

"The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown" is the one that takes me back. My first real taste of psychedelia.

Strictly the first was some KTEL television advertised compilation given as a Christmas present by my parents.

The first I purchased for my 13th birthday with funds given to me by relatives;

Still very fond of it.

First LP I bought with my own carefully saved coins was Geoff Love (and his orchestra, naturally) murdering the James Bond movie themes. I thought On Her Majesty's Secret Service was great. First album bought for me was the soundtrack to Oliver, which I don't remember ever listening to by choice. When I was at university, a friend performed a much re-written version of 'Boy For Sale' which Lionel Bart may not have approved of, had he heard it.

As for formative years, possibly MC5's 'Kick Out The Jams', which I bought (second hand) the same day as Yes's 'Going for the One' (new). Still have the MC5.

...Pretenders
Eat to the Beat - Blondie.

First album also BAD by Michael Jackson (on tape).

Proustian Rush - probably a copy of Star by Belly I had when I was 16/17.

Mr Fantasy in 1967, when I was 12. Would have loved Sgt Pepper too, but most people had that already anyway.

Still play the album, still sounds good. That was a fantastic year for great sounding music, before most bands felt they had to get rootsy (the Nashville Skyline effect) and simply stopped experimenting with texture and instumentation. Or did the drugs change?

13th birthday and on cassette I bought:

Blondie Parallel Lines and ELO Out of the Blue.

Still love them both and they answer both questions.

I would add Cool for Cats by Squeeze as well as an answer to the second question.

...the 'fake' Jungle Book album although the first album I had any input in obtaining was actually The World Of The Goodies, featuring the excellent 'Stuff That Gibbon' and the Bonzo-ish 'Mummy I Don't Like My Meat'.
Proustian Rushes: Blondie - Parallel Lines and The Beat -I Just Can't Stop It (both on tape).
Incidentally re. the OP; Wasn't Complete Madness 1982?

"The Kids From Fame". Not even the film OST - the TV series. LP bought from under the stairs in Littlewoods, Church Street, Liverpool.
Gig was Manchester Palace. Musical Youth were in the audience. Sister was thrilled.
I rather like Glee now.

Birthday present 1968

Still have it

Still love it

The Kinks Kontroversy (great version of Milk Cow Blues)

Vanilla Fudge

Both gone but not forgotten

I think my first album was Parallel Lines by Blondie.

Haven't heard it in 30 years and for some reason don't feel the need to.

The album that takes me back to my mid-teens is My Favourite Shop by The Style Council. The miners strike, Thatcherism, Greenham Common, CND, the GLC....those were the days! I thought they would never end...and then in the early 1990s they kinda did.

U2 - Boy

I got this, my first LP. I still have the very same copy.

Funnily enough I heard it on CD recently and must say it hasn't aged very well at all. I loved it at the time but let's own up, the British simply hadn't learned how to do authentic rock and roll at that stage. Although Hank Marvin was, and remains, great.

I can't remember what records came after Cliff, but four years later in November 1963 I got this LP on the day JFK was killed. It's probably not too much of an exaggeration to say that it changed everything about my life forever.

was 'The Shadows Greatest Hits'

The one that takes me back is this :-

Played it over and over when I was 18.

Bought for me, was N0W 31- which featured artists such as 'Wet Wet Wet', 'Outhere Brothers', 'MN8' and 'Ine Kamozee'. The year was 1995, and I was nine years old.

The first album(s) I bought were Travis-The Man Who and Jamiroquai-Synkronized. I think I got them both from WHSmith at the age of thirteen.

The CD that takes me back to my formative years, was The Beatles-One, which started a love affair which continues to this day.

It was advertised on the TV with a lad 'playing' a cricket bat and doing the Shadows walk in front of his bedroom mirror. That made me laugh (I was 12). That and the cover of the 3 headstocks in silohutte I thought was brilliant.

The one that takes me back:

Making Movies - Dire Straits.

I was 16 and a mess. I loved this album.

First (with my own money): "Help!" by those naughty HJH
Formative album: "The Doors" (their debut) - lots of listening in the dark when I was a tragic teen...

Bingo-loving granny finally hit the jackpot and bought me my first album for our recently purchased record player - for a long time it was the only "pop" album in the house.

Years later a mate at school was selling a copy of Rubber Soul - I asked my mum if I could buy it, price was a pre-decimal ten bob.

"Why would you want that" she said " you've already got a Beatles LP!"

I got it anyway - played them both until the grooves wore out

My first album was Jethro Tull's Aqualung - brilliant record, I still have it some 39 years later. Can't remember why I bought it for the life of me. I must have heard it at a friends.

The record that instanly takes me back to that time circa 1972 when i as 14 is, predictably Dark Side of the Moon. Just the first few heartbeats and I am instantly back in my bedroom at the top of my parents house in Bristol, window open, lights out,sound of the city drifting in over the quiet bits. Wonderful!

Bought on cassette as a 12-year old in '82. The League's finest hour.

was the first LP I bought with my own pocket money along with Geoff Love's Big Terror at WH Smiths.

I liked horror films. Still do.

PEDANTS CORNER: OP said he bought Complete Madness & Rio in 1981 but they were released the following year.

Ah, this has been already dealt with. Carry on.

First Album given: Barron Knights - received Christmas 1981 along with 1960s Dansette record player
First Album bought: Iron Maiden - Number Of The Beast

Albums that ignite memories of growing up: Jam - Snap, and The Beatles 1962-66 (my parents copy that mysteriously became permanently resident in my bedroom (and I've still got that copy))

bought in 1974 from Woolworths on Northumberland St. I actually got it for a quid less than it should have been by swapping price stickers ( no bar codes in those days) with a Tony Bennett M.F.P cheapo album...best £1.59 i,ve ever spent.

...was the first one I bought with my own money.
It was the first time I ever went to a proper record shop as well, I was there with a friend who was going to buy a present for her dad ( a John Williams soundtrack if I remember correctly ).
It had never occured to me before that day that I could actually go to a record shop and buy my own records instead of asking for them as birthday and Christmas gifts.
This revelation was one of those life changing moments that stay with you for ever. The excitement of picking up that album and just knowing that I had to have it, even though I had heard only two of their songs ( and one of those I didn't like much ).
I had to borrow money from my friend to afford it ( double album ), I played it over and over again when I came home and loved every second of it and my older brother was seriously impressed that I had bought it on my own.
Not sure which year this was but I think I must have been...hm, ten ? eleven ? Late seventies...
I still prefer to buy my music unheard. It brings back that first exciting moment when I came back home and put that Queen album on the turntable, willing it to be as fantastic as it already was in my imagination.

Followed by Sargeant Pepper and Rubber Soul.
My big sister was a Beatles fan, as was a girl I fancied at school.

Worked out well I think. Probably why I got into music.

I think the album I asked for was by Olivia Newton John, not for the music but for the picture on the cover, I was 12 and she was going to be my wife. A few months later we divorced when Suzi Quatro came along.

The first album I bought with my own money, required my sister to take me into a 'proper' record shop in Bury so I could hand over my pocket money for Argent's All Together Now.

The album that takes me back, is also the album that helped form my ecletic (Word wise) muiscal taste was Alice Cooper’s Schools Out, introdcing me to pure pop, gritty rock, jazz, vaudville, soundtrack.

As I type this 39 years later I’m just putting the audio discs from the Old School box set on my i-pod.... School Out still sends a shiver of excitement down the spine everytime

was Abba's "Arrival" in 1976, still got it at my parents, along with other dubious purchases of the late 70's such as the Jungle Book, Grease soundtrack and Wombles...

As for my formative years, well it's three albums that I can't really separate rather than one. It was 1978, I was 13 years old, I had a weekend pass into the free world and as my folks were overseas I went to stay with my gran.

An older guy at school who was into Punk Rock, let me borrow Ramones "Rocket To Russia", The Stranglers "Black & White" and Sex Pistols "Never Mind The Bollocks" as I'd expressed an interest in what he was blasting out in the barracks dorm. I was fascinated, sitting on the floor, the album sleeves spread in front of me hammering out these amazing bursts of noise on my gran's old record player which shook and buzzed as I cranked up the volume.

Thing is, those three albums are probably still amongst my favourites today!

London Town.

Bought with my birthday money, June 4, 1977. I was 12.

All those Top Of The Pops albums don't count as I didn't buy them for myself.

Bixie must be of a similar vintage.

Got Kings of the Wild Frontier for my 11th birthday in March. Then splurged on the record tokens I was given and got

Journeys To Glory by Spandau, Duran Duran's debut and Depeche's Speak and Spell

KotWF is the one that kicks in the nostalgia gene though. It's the drums!

I too had, and indeed still have, the Disney 'Jungle Book' album though unfortunately cannot recall if it was a present or not. However, Geoff Love's 'Big War Movie' themes was definitely bought with my own money and played extensively. My first pop album was Slade's hits compilation, 'Sladest'.

All of them are currently on a pile that's been waiting to be ripped to mp3 for the last two years.

I'd love to say something cool like London Calling, or Kraftwerk were my first albums, but I believe my first 'LP' was either Shakin' Stevens' "Shaky" (pink jacket, pointing, on the cover) or Adam And The Ants' "Prince Charming". The latter I would probably still play now. The Shaky, I think I have grown out of. Although whoever played the 50s rocking guitar on some of the songs was great. Maybe I should dig it out again!

It was those two on strict rotation for a few years, coupled with my mum's records: I do clearly remember lying on the lounge floor, ear to the speaker, listening to her Lionel Ritchie "Can't Slow Down" LP as a boy. I think I was trying to get to the perfect sound, albeit from one speaker! Probably explains my obsession with sound now. And she weirdly had Status Quo's 12 Gold Bars, which is actually pretty good; a great collection of boogie rock before they got rubbish (mid 80s). Strange, a 8 year old boy listening to 'Living on an Island' which I'm pretty sure is about drugs. Of course, I was just imagining Francis Rossi sitting on an actual island 'waiting for his friend to come'...

I was eight. So it was all gay hedonism round my way...

The Specials first album was my first album. Soon followed with Bad Manners and Dance Craze soundtrack. I loved all that 2 tone stuff back then and if it now comes up on the ipod shuffle I'll leave it playing. I remember me and my mates all around 10 years old in the summer holidays walking around the local streets wearing all black and white including ties and trilbies! Shame there are no photo's from then because I think they'd be both cool and incredibly embarrassing.

Proper formative album has to be The Smiths first album. Pure class to my then 14 year old ears.

Kind of cool.

First Single purchased – Muppet Show Theme tune (b-side: It’s Not Easy Being Green)

Very Cool!

...but my first record (bought with a record token) was 'The New Goodies LP' containing Funky Gibbon and Rock With a Policeman, which contained the line 'you should hear them shout, when I whip my truncheon out'. I was 11 at the time and have not progressed much since.

The first that I paid for myself was a cassette copy of the Monty Python Instant Record Collection to go with the Grundig portable cassette recorder I got for my 13th birthday. To this day I love stand up comedy and spoken word albums. Not so keen on musical comedy though, Flight of the Conchords aside.

The albums that take me back to my formative years are the Beatles Red and Blue compilations. The first records my Dad bought when we got our first record player when I was nine. I clearly remember reading the lyrics along to the songs and feeling embarassed every time the word love came up, which was quite a lot.

Ignoring all the kiddie MFP knock off Disney-type albums by the Mike Sammes singers and a couple of dodgy ToTP LPs which I got as presents, the first album I actually asked for was...

Must have been around 1973 or 1974.

First albums bought with my own pocket money were, all around the same time...

and

(a double album set of the first two albums, largely to get hold of their version of "Roll Over Beethoven")

First album bought for me was Country Life by Roxy Music

(hard to imagine my granny buying that cover in Menzies in Glasgow!)

First album with own money was Not Fragile by Bachman Turner Overdrive.

But the one that takes me back...Rumours by Fleetwood Mac (memories of teenage heartache....oo'er!)

The usual suspects will note the complete absence of prog, Canterbury, etc....

in 1970. Also the only LP I ever bought twice

In 1966 I bought my first album "Best of the Troggs".
Loved them and as you did back then I was also buying the singles, so a bit of double upping.
"Night of the Long Grass" one of the weirdest songs on the album and of the period. Also one of their least popular.

The formulative album(s) has to be a four way tie.

Otis Blue - Otis Redding

Boogie with Canned Heat - Canned Heat

Hot Buttered Soul - Isaac Hayes

Morrison Hotel - The Doors

First album was the Beatles -Help and the one that takes me back would be Let it bleed by the Stones

First LP was a hand-me-down copy of "Rock 'n' Roller Disco" - a Ronco compilation my sister had got bored with.

The first LP I bought with my own money was "Victory in Europe 1945," a compilation of BBC war reports. I'd recently done a school project on the war, and was captivated by my Grandad's stories about his days in the Army. It was 1985, and it cost £2.99 (just over 3 weeks' pocket money.)

First album I had was The Muppet Show album (Christmas pressie - superb gatefold sleeve, still have it today).

First album I bought with my pocket money was the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack.

Other early albums included ABBA, Adam and the Ants and AC/DC. Looking back, I'm thinking that perhaps these choices may have been more influenced by my being too small to reach further back than the 'A' section in the rack?

Swapped it for Alladin Sane about 2 months later. A new world dawned..

Think the 2nd and 3rd were Tubular Bells and Band on the Run, followed by Dark Side of the Moon. All bought and paid for from my old mums Freemans catalogue.

1. Georgie Fame - Sound Venture
2. Led Zep I - it was only a couple of years ago when I retired that I re-visited my Vinyl collection and realised that I had a first pressing,turquois lettered album sleeve. This started me collecting vinyl again after a 40 year absence. Driving my wife nuts with space requirements!!

First Album: The Rolling Stones - their first as well! 32 shillings and sixpence it cost me and I had saved up for ages. See The In Box in Issue 49 of this august organ for more.

The One That Takes Me Back: A tie between Otis Blue, which came out the year after the Stones and was my first soul - as we called it in those days - album. To this day, it gives me goose bumps. The other one is Bringing It All Back Home (see mojoworking's excellent Quiz of The Day). Gone are the day when I could sing every word of every track, but this always takes me back to those heady days of my youth.

I bought EJ's Rock of the Westies on cassette ... my first ever album. I loved it then and I love it now. The thing is although I've since replaced it with the vinyl version and then the CD, I've still got the cassette and it still plays absolutely fine.

its either the first Santana album or Stand Up by the mighty Tull. My copy has a 37/6 price tag on it so that takes me back.