I think I got them around the same time, and it was in 5th grade, probably, but these were my very first cassette tapes . . .
Dead or Alive - Youthquake
Duran Duran - Rio
A-Ha - Hunting High and Low
By Junior High my two favorite bands were Wall of Voodoo and Oingo Boingo and I started getting into a lot of the old OC punk bands too, since that pretty much came along with the package deal of being a skater in our part of the world.
In High School I was obsessed with the Dead Kennedys and Rigor Mortis . . . both of which led me to Ministry. Most people think I’ve just been a metalhead forever, but honestly it wasn’t until college that I really embraced metal.
My first album (cassette) was Bon Jovi: Slippery When Wet.
I was in the 5th grade, saw them on MTV, and thought they were pretty cool. Saved up my allowance for a few weeks, and made my mom drive me to K-mart to get it. After a few listens in the car, I noticed my mom singing along and I remember thinking, “If she likes this, it must definitely NOT be cool.” I said she could have the tape and moved on to heavier stuff.
Oh man this is a great topic.
I think debbie gibson out of the blue was my first tape (not counting the various cyndi lauper and weird al 45s my mom would buy me when i was younger than 5th grade) either debbie or the fat boys crushin’ i think it was debie then fat boys because by the end of my 6th grade year id moved into gnr def leppard aerosmith and the like and completely left rap and pop behind but more so rap cause i still dug on the bad album by mike. Got i to punk my freshmen year. Dks, circle jerks and descendents were my bands.
Def Leppard - Vault
Fast Times At Ridgemont High Soundtrack
First shopping trip:
Primus - Miscellaneous Debris EP
Primus - Tales From The Punchbowl
White Zombie - La Sexorcisto (Devil Music Vol. 1)
Motley Crue - Shout At The Devil (Crucial Crue Version)
I think it was a cassette of “Oh No, it’s Devo”
First record was definitely Wam “Wake Me Up before You Gogo”
First CD was The The “Mindbomb” and They Might Be Giants “Flood” bought on the same day.
I had access to all my dad’s albums…at 1 years old I was running around and rocking out to Get Your Ya-Ya’s Out by The Stones…early records I had bought for me that I listened to obsessively were the Hair Soundtrack and Disco Duck…
First album I bought with my own money was Led Zeppelin 4…
I think I got my first three cassettes as Christmas gifts.
By Junior High, every birthday or Christmas I’d ask for another Wall of Voodoo or Oingo Boingo tape.
My parents didn’t have any issue with me listening to Oingo Boingo, Wall of Voodoo, Duran Duran . . . or any of that kooky 80’s new wave stuff. When I started getting into more progressively weird or extreme music in high school I just decided my musical pursuits were best kept private when at home.
First real concert: Ozzy Osbourne, LA Guns, Lynch Mob, Alice in Chains. Circa 1990.
First Rock T-Shirts: I bought two DK t-shirts around 1990/1991. I still have them both. One of them I still wear. They are made of an insanely great synthetic blend that is really built to last. The white one, however, is really gross. It’s near transparent so leaves nothing to the imagination when a hairy 42 year old man wears it in all his nippled glory. And it is nowhere near white. More like very faint grey with odd patches of body-stained grime.
My first concert was Santana in 1979…still have the T-shirt…white long sleeve with black sleeves…
Second concert:JUDAS PRIEST-SCREAMING FOR VENGEANCE TOUR!!! with Uriah Heep opening up…blew my 11/12 year old mind…when Halford rode out on the bike I nearly shit myself…still have the tattered t-shirt which is several sizes to small…
The first album I bought with my own money was the soundtrack to the Rankin-Bass cartoon of “The Hobbit”. I saved up $15. It was a box set that included two records, a book, and several t-shirt iron ons.
Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet
Def Leppard - Hysteria
GnR - Appetite
Metallica - And Justice
Funny story about that… I remember putting Justice on in the car with my dad… and hearing James say in Blackened ‘see our mother put to death, see our mother die’… and my dad freaking out. In hindsight, guess I am glad he didn’t hear Last Caress.
Also… a few months later, I found a random cassette on the ground (like one of those mix tape things)… and put it in my walkman and was amazed by what I was hearing. There was no markings on the tape so I had no idea who it was. I listened to it over and over until it basically wore out. Years later, a buddy of mine put a tape in my car and I lost it… because it was the same songs I hadn’t heard in years because I was never able to buy the actual tape since I had no idea who it was. Turns out it was DRI’s Dirty Rotten LP.
Ah. Good old days before the internet…
Edit: my first cds…
NIN - Downward Spiral
Pantera - Vulgar
Black Sabbath - Sold Our Soul
Hard question to answer. I remember ‘inheriting’ a few albums from a guy who my parents rented an apartment to after he skipped out on the rent when I was only about 10 or 11. He left behind some Hendrix and Doors albums and one by an experimental band called ‘The United States of America’ that set me on a path of esoteric listening.
I was given the first Procol Harum album as a gift when I was only about 11 from a hip uncle. And a few months later a friend let me have his second copy of Zappa’s “We’re Only In It for the Money”. I can still sing every song from that disc to this day.
But the first album I can remember buying with my own money was “Steppenwolf Live”.
This is a tough one since, in my household, buying cassettes was originally a collective decision…we siblings would pool together our money and were usually thinking the same thing about to buy next. Earliest purchases were most likely ZZ Top ‘Eliminator’ and Billy Idol ‘Rebel Yell’. Before that, my parents had a copy of Vangelis’ “Chariots of Fire” soundtrack that i found strangely affecting when it was listened to on long car trips, i sort of appropriated it from their collection.
I think I broke out on my own for the first time by buying a copy of PIL’s “Live in Tokyo.” A weird choice, and honestly not a good album even by the
“everything weird is cool” standards of a tween. But: i knew it featured “the guy from the Sex Pistols” and would be a good alternative to a proper Pistols album in that i wouldn’t get in as much trouble if it was found in my room. My family practically steered me in that direction, though, by telling me who the Pistols were when - I shit you not - they came up as the answer to a ‘Trivial Pursuit’ question, and it was explained to me that good boys do not listen to bad people who ‘murder their girlfriends’ etc. So, anyway, that curiosity was a motivating factor, plus the album was a “nice price” discount, thus i passed up genuinely amazing records like Second Edition and Flowers of Romance to get that one.
Didn’t know it at the time, but of course Martin Atkins was the drummer on that one. Both he and the city of Tokyo would end up irrevocably altering the course of my life…
As a contrast, first thing I got as a birthday gift was “Radio” by LL Cool J. Bumped that one on my trusty Omnibot tape deck a few times.
My first concert was Over Kill and Dark Angel at Peabody’s Down Under in the old Cleveland flats. 1989, I was 13 years old. It was amazing. The pit, the energy, just amazing.
My first CD’s were Ministry: The Land of Rape & Honey and Meat Beat Manifesto: Now [CD Single]. My girlfriend at the time bought them for me xmas 1991.