My home cleanout and organizing continues. I am staring down boxes of a lot of obsolete formats like VHS, CDs, cassettes and albums. What do I keep? What do I get rid of? When do you need the hard copy of a memory?
When I was 12 years old I got my first album. I still have it.
The album had a big sticker on it stating you had to be 18 years old to buy it. I was not. Putting on mascara and my best pair of Road Runners wouldn’t convince anyone otherwise.
So Norm, my father, went to the store and bought it for me.
I take a strange sort of pride in the fact that my first album was a comedy album. It make sense for me really. You know. Because I’m funny. I mean, I’m not being particularly funny at this moment but … I can be hilarious if I try very hard and you're just coming out of dental surgery in.
I probably haven’t listened to this album since I was 16. I thought about listening to it a decade ago when Robin Williams died and then didn't. I'm hesitant because I have no idea if I’ll think it’s funny or sad or dated or timely.
I don't think I want to lose the memory I have of it. What if I think it's awful, I hate it, and question every thought I've ever had about everything while I was 12? What then?
Now onto the first music album I bought.
I have no idea how we got there or why our parents let us, but I got my first music album on a trip to Buffalo with some highschool friends. You may notice I’ve spelled highschool as one word instead of the more socially acceptable two worded “high school”. That’s because I strongly believe it should be one word and I am rebelling against the two worded highschool spelling.
I realize I achieve nothing with this protest.
Anyhow, I had a certain amount of money to spend while I was in Buffalo and I’m sure if Betty had anything to do with it I was supposed to buy clothing, shoes or makeup. But I didn’t.
I bought this.
John Cougar, as he was known then, is now John Mellencamp. I was lucky enough to interview him when I was an entertainment reporter. And he was just like I thought he would be; relaxed & rough, with a smoker’s cough and without pretence.
I don't know what the second or the last album I bought was but I feel attached to them. Plus I have a turntable. So even though I rarely play them and when I do I feel like I've just sat down to listen before I have to get up and flip the album over, I am going to dedicate several linear feet of storage to vinyl.
My cassettes will all be given away or chucked. There are a couple rarer ones that I might have transferred to digital. The CDs ... omg the CDs. I worked as a music reporter for a few years in the 90's and I have almost every CD made in those years.
I also have all the CDs I bought myself in the years before and after my time at MuchMoreMusic.
But I don't own a CD player.
And a CD just doesn't have the patina of an album.
So I'm going to go through all of the CDs and just make note of any I remember loving - a Steve Poltz record comes to mind - and then I'll buy it in digital form.
I have Tupperware BINS of VHS tapes of almost every SINGLE time I was on television. There are hours and hours and hours of my life on television starting from when I first volunteered on local cable to the next 10 years of hosting shows, most of them daily.
I'd love to just hand the boxes to someone and say please convert everything and deliver them back with a bag of chips please. Maybe I will. Years ago I did a sponsored post for Legacybox and they really did do a great job of converting stuff for me, but there must be a local place I can try as well. I'll have to look into it.
You know what’s coming now. Now I'm going to ask you what YOUR first album was.
I'm excited to hear the answers.
Quatorze
The Beatles - the black and white one with their faces.
Denise
King Crimson!
Maryse
Grease!!
Karen
My dad took me to the theatre to see Grease! ~ karen
Trish
Shaun Cassidy. Don’t remember the title, but he had a large toothy smile on the cover photo and was very dreamy.
Sabina
I have that album! I’m from Buffalo! I don’t remember the first album I bought but the first 45 I bought was Ballroom Blitz by Sweet at Cavages on West Ferry Street for a total cost of $1.07. They played it on the Holiday Bounce in the amusement park at Crystal Beach, which was our summer playground, and I was hooked. “Are you ready, Steve?”
<3
Cindy
Let's gooooooooo
Karen
Uh huh, Andy? Mick? Alright fellas, let's goooooo. ~ karen!
Sarah
Michael Jackson - Thriller
I loved that album!
Karen
Most everyone did! I know I did and still have the album. :) ~ karen
Jennifer Naugler
Thriller-Micheal Jackson.
Donna
The first was a Paul Revere and the Raiders album. We loved his long ponytail.
Marion Gibson
The Chipmunks Sing the Beatles Hits. I still have it and every record my late husband and I ever owned. Someday they’ll have to go but for now I have room for them.
Karen
The Chimpmunks Sing the Beatles?! Well that's not one you'd forget is it? ~ karen!
Jennifer
You guys are all too cool. Mine was Too the Extreme by Vanilla Ice. I made my grandma buy it for me at Woolworth's. Either that or Spike by Elvis Costello. ;)
Karen
Both good choices but Elvis Costello is not only good, it's also GREAT. ~ karen
Chris W.
Interesting post today - makes me realize that many of your followers are in my age bracket. I truly do not remember what the first album was that I purchased but when we gave all of them to our son-in-law (he really wanted them because much of it was music he listened to that his older 3 brothers had), the only one we told him to hang onto was the Woodstock album, which he did. He donated the rest - there were alot of them and big space wasters when you don't listen to them anymore. Anyway, thanks for the memory joggers!
Grammy
First album I owned was Elvis' Golden Records, 1958. First one I bought with my own money was Ricky Sings Again -- Ricky Nelson in 1959.
Sabina
My dad gave me that and a tricycle for my 5th birthday <3
Laurie
I lived in a small rural town with very little shopping. Our access to purchasing vinyl was a collection sold in a hardware store in a town 17 miles away. There was a smell of lawn fertilizer, the sound of clinking stainless steel and the rocking feeling of cushy wooden floors while you searched for your next big hit. I used babysitting money to buy The Carpenters album that came out in 1971.
Karen
The Carpenters! Now I want to play the Carpenters. ~ karen
Evil Andie
I know I bought stuff before as my father believed in music and books and on Saturdays we would go to A&A, Sam’s and world’s biggest book store and wander for hours along with many Pickel barrel lunches lol
But the one I really remember buying was New Order Substance 1987. I don’t know why it is stuck in my head but I can still remember that day and picking it up to buy it and where in the store I was.
Still one of my favourite albums.
Karen
THAT is a good first memory album. ~ karen!
Karen from Maine
OMG! Talk about a stroll down memory lane! My first album I purchased with money I had gotten for my birthday sometime in the early seventies - I think I was eleven at the time. I bought it at E.J.Korvette’s Department Store in NYC (Staten Island, to be precise), and it was by Engelbert Humperdinck. This was only after my parents had approved of the record selection! Thanks, Karen, for stirring up some good memories. And, BTW, you are very humorous!
Ellie Fournier
First album 1967
Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie
Nina
1964: after graduation from junior "highschool" my dad took me to our local record shop to buy Meet the Beatles for my gift. I still have it packed away in the garage. It was a special gift in so many ways as I was the oldest of 5 kids and hardly ever had alone time with my dad, I was on the way to senior high school, and The Beatles were the best! I wore that album out, and learned every song. My dad would play guitar and I would sing some of them. The next year I saw them at the Hollywood Bowl (couldn't hear them,though.)
Petra
Yup. Meet the Beatles. I was still in elementary school. And every Beatles album thereafter.
tuffy
And yes, you are funny. I’m glad you’re a do-er and writer that can brighten all of our days. You’re hilarious 😂
Karen
Thanks tuffy! ~ karen!
tuffy
Either a Woodie Guthrie album or a Rolling Stones album 😏
I forget which was first…
Cherie
Probably an Elvis Presley album was the first one I bought, but before that I had Les Paul and Mary Ford and Don Cornell (bet you never heard of him) because they were part of a package for the first record player my parents bought for me, a portable one. But, yup, probably Elvis was the first one I bought with mu babysitting money.
Grammy
I don't recall Don Cornell, but I loved Les Paul and Mary Ford. Long before Elvis there was such a lot of great music on the radio.
Karen
Of course I've heard of them! Anyone with any interest in music knows who Les Paul and Mary Ford are. :) ~ karen!