Your first LP, CD or cassette that you paid with your own money.

[Pabo]

There was once a show here in Australia called Rock Wiz. It was a recorded live show that was held in a pub in Melbourne in front of an audience where you had two special guest musicians on opposing teams coupled with two audience members for each team. There was the questioneer, as well as the adjudicator that also kept the show.

 

Now, at the start of each show, the questioneer would ask the contestants (including the guest musicians) what was their first album that they purchased, or their first concert they went to. 

 

So for this topic, we will proceed with what was the first album that you purchased, whether an LP, cassette or CD. 

 

For myself, I was in the tape cassette era, it is a tie as I purchased two cassettes:

 

Australian Crawl - Sons of Beaches

 

The Angels - Dark Room

 

As for my first CD, it too was a tie and both were Paul McCartney's

 

Choba B CCCP (aka The Russian Album)

 

Unplugged

[Datsun_120Y]

"The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill"

From the record shop back in the day called Sanity. 

[exactor]

It was 1960. I was 14 years old. I had my own car-washing business. $$$🤑My Mom worked part-time and started Regular Pioneering after we came back from Yankee Stadium in 1958. I supported myself—she supported herself. After a long day in Service or on weekends, I put on Gene Ammons and chill.😎

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S69l_bkb9AU

 

 

 

[Hope]

My own money? "Hotter Than July" - Stevie Wonder, 1981

 

Still one of my favorite albums 🤩

 

Bought at my specific request (before I had money)? "Grease Original Soundtrack" - 1978. I LOVED that movie! 😍

[jdcarlson]

I am not exactly certain, but I believe my first album was a monorual LP by jazz accordionist Art Van Damme.

 

This was probably about 1958.

 

I was still in high school living with my parents.

 

Their "hi-fi" was a Magnavox monorual record player (played 33 /13 rpm, 45 rpm & 78 rpm discs up to 12 inches). It had a Collaro changer.

 

When I got married in 1963 they gave me their old Magnavox as a wedding present.

 

After getting married, to update to stereo, I built a Lafayette Amp and a Harmon-Kardon tuner from kits. I bought the lowest price Shure stereo cartridge and installed that in the old Collaro changer. I found a couple of old 6x9 speakers with cabinets. The only comment I will make about the quality of sound from that old system is that at least it was in stereo.

 

In the 68+ years since then, my audio/video system has progressed to McIntosh electronics (McIntosh Laboratories in Binghampton, New York - one of few companies still manufacturing "high end" audio components in the US - if you are not familiar with McIntosh try a google search - or the discussion forums on Audiokarma.org or Audioaficionado.org - or do a search on Ebay for McIntosh electronics). They have the reputation of building very high quality components that last a long time. My two power amps were last made 30 years ago. So, they must be at least that old, and still have sound that is not embaressed by any other component. At one time I had 11 McIntosh Power Amps, as well as several other McIntosh components and some non-Mcintosh items. About eight months ago I sold off that equipment to Audio Classics (a dealer in used high end audio gear) keeping only two amps (McIntosh MC2205s, 200 wpc), one Digital/Analog Converter (McIntosh MAC3), one Tuner/Preamp combo (McIntosh MX130), and a McIntosh MEN220 "Room Equalizer" with a calibrated condensor microphone.  I am using full range Electrostatic Speakers (KLH Model Nines - totally rebuilt within the past year by David Janszen, son of the original designer), a Teac X-10R Reel to Reel tape deck (10 1/2" reels) and Yahama PX-3 Linear Tracking turntable with moving coil cartridge and a McIntosh Moving Coil amplifier to feed the pre-amp.

 

In my office system (before I retired) I had three 400cd changers (Sony M555ES) full of CD's (1200 CDs). These have all been transferred to hard drive storage on a 5tb usb drive. The CD Changers went to Audio Classics with the rest of the audio junque.

 

A few years ago I Digitized about 120 LPs to 192k, 24bit, FLAC files (using an older Yamaha turntable with a moving magnet cartridge). I plan on re-doing that project with my newer turntable and the moving coil cartridge.

 

My musical tasts have concentrated on jazz, string quartets (chamber music), and "light" pop music (although I do believe ther may be two Jerry Garcia CDs in ther somewhere). In later years I got into classical composers (Beethoven, Handel, Schubert, etc.). My enjoyment of string quartets "chamber music" has led me to collect everything by Bach and Mozart. I was going to try to get everything by Vivaldi, but extensive internet searching tells me no one is really sure how much music Vivaldi wrote. I cannot even find a listing of all of his works, let alone recordings.

 

My two favorite performers are Frank Sinatra and Harry Belafonte. Belafonte has the better singing voice, but few performers can come close to matching Sinatra's styling, phrasing, and interfacing with the Orchestra. This ability of Sinatra can be seen as getting better from his early recordings (in the 1950s) down to when he formed his own label (Reprise) where he was "the boss" and had total control over everything. You can tell in the early recordings he was "just the singer" subject to the wishes of the conductor.

 

My mother died in 2002, and I inherited her extensive collection of LPs & CDs. I have not yet gone through them to see what is there. They are mostly classical, string quartets, and jazz. I plan to digitize her LPs to 192k, 24 bit, FLAC files. Her CDs will end up transferred to the 5tb usb drive. 

 

Her collection is considerably heavier on Classical than mine is.

 

For video I have a 77" Sony OLED TV. The TV sound runs through the McIntosh, et al, audio system.

 

Watching ZOOM meetings on the 77" with the good audio system is sooo much better than on my laptop (with its 1" speakers).

 

Using my current system I can hear a definite difference in definition and clarity between the music from JW.org, WOL, JWLibrary, etc. I have not yet determined if this has anything to do with age of the recordings and the definition at which they are posted (some are from the old songbook) or the internet connection accessed through various options.

 

You may wonder why I have gone so heavy on good equipment rather than going to some live concerts. Well - remember, Pensacola is very much a NAVY town, the Pensacola Naval Air Station (NAS) is the home of the "Blue Angels" (the Navy's flight demonstration team). Although Navy flight training has now changed a little bit, at one time any Navy pilot (especially during the Viet Nam conflict) spent at least six months in Pensacola. There is a LOT of retired military here.  At one time Pensacola was  called "the mother-in-law of the Navy" because so many single young men going through flight training married local girls. I tried to go to a concert one time, but they started out with "Star Spangled Banner" even though that was not on the program. When their next concert was advertised, I called to ask if the national anthem would be played. I was told "of course, what do you expect?" A 'commercial' performance by a commercial atrist may avoid that, buy anything presented by any entity connected with government, schools, local authorities, etc., will start with the national anthem.  So, I do not attend.

 

But thanks to Jehovah's organization, there is plenty of upbuilding music to enjoy on JW.org!!!

 

Thanks,

 

Jim

[Doug]

The album I couldn't listen to enough was The Temptations.  I looked to find the album cover, it may have been their Greatest Hits.

 

I remember these songs:    My Girl

                                              Papa Was a Rollin' Stone

                                              Just My Imagination

                                              I Wish it Would Rain

                                              I'm Losing You

                                              Cloud Nine

 

In high school I bought a Frank Zappa album ~ Freak Out / Suzie Creamcheese

[Pabo]

21 hours ago, exactor said:

It was 1960. I was 14 years old. I had my own car-washing business. $$$🤑My Mom worked part-time and started Regular Pioneering after we came back from Yankee Stadium in 1958. I supported myself—she supported herself. After a long day in Service or on weekends, I put on Gene Ammons and chill.😎

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S69l_bkb9AU

 

Looking at his discography, boy, did he have a long list of record releases for a short life time, albeit, plenty of albums were issued whilst he was in prison. 

 

I listen to a podcast called "A history of rock music in 500 songs", and the podcaster mentions plenty of times that a record label will release previously unrecorded tracks by an artist and either they release them as a single or album, especially when their artist is somewhat incompacitated in producing new songs, or having contract disagreements, enlisted in the defence forces, etc. When you hear what record labels treated their artists, you wonder why you would ever get mixed up in that industry.

 

I'll have to keep my ears out and listen to his tracks sometime.

[Pabo]

23 hours ago, Datsun_120Y said:

Record shop back in the day called Sanity. 

 

We still had a store locally I think till just before COVID. They mainly sold DVD box sets and other things other than music. They are atill around, but just online, no bricks and mortars stores anymore.

 

I used to get my music from Flame Tree Music in the Illawarra, he had contacts in the UK and was able to get some of my requests when he couldn't get them here in Australia. Sadly, the store went the way of the dodo.

[coony77]

I grew up in the 80s and 90s, where it was common for us kids to exchange tapes with each other and copy songs we loved via a “double cassette deck” in the stereo system.

My memory is failing me a bit here, but I think my first complete album that I transferred to tape in this way was Michael Jackson's “Bad”. What I do remember very clearly, however, was my first CD, which was Roxette: “Joyride”. I also had a record player, but I hardly ever had to buy vinyl records myself because I had the ABBA and Beatles records in my parents' collection, which I loved listening to.

[StarHope]

My first ever CD was the first album of the Backstreet boys. I was super thrilled to have my own CD and would play it over and over on my stereo system.