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.
First album - I was probably around 11 - was John Denver's Rocky Mountain High. I was a very young hippie and wanted to live on a mountain with... John Denver. Didn't realize back then how illegal all that would've been.
Any time I hear a song from that album it swoops me back to childhood and the daydreams of a much different life.
I have a soft spot for John Denver too! ~ karen
Meet the Beatles! A classic. Who didn't love the Fab 4 when they were all so cute - even John and Ringo. And the songs of innocence, like "I Want to Hold Your Hand". Compare that to the X rated lyrics of today. We are not evolving much.
My first album was Billy Joel's The Nylon Curtain. I am a closet Billy Joel fan. Not something I would have admitted 35 years ago when I was a fierce fan of punk and new wave music. I would have been laughed out of the room and had rumors spread about me that I was totally lame for liking someone so Top 40.
The third album by the Byrds, Fifth Dimension. I was 16, bought it in a grocery store.
I have that very same Robin Williams album! It's really funny; I remember that one skit is The Reader's Digest Condensed Version of Roots. The TV mini-series was reduced to about 45 seconds... I'd keep all the vinyl and DVDs.
While my older sister and I pooled our money together to get Beatles albums... My first one I bought all on my own was, "Tapestry" by Carole King.
still have and still love it.
.......and of course my sister kept all the ones we got together.....bitch.
My first album was Duran Duran Arena with the song Wild Boys on it. First 45 was Mr. Roboto by Styx...
Diana Ross and the Supremes "Love Child". I must have looked pitiful at 12 so my Mom bought it for me at The Bargain Center. Still have it today and sounds perfect, scratches and all!
Back when you could mail in for things from the back of cereal boxes, my sister and I got our first album. I think it was a compilation but I know it had the song "I shot the sheriff" by Bob Marley. My mother was sure we shouldn't be listening to it. I think she thought it might put ideas in our heads. I think we were 9 and 10.
Neil Diamond; Taproot Manuscript. I was in grade 5.
Hi Karen
The Beatles, Let It Be. I started saving for it when it came out. I was 12. It took me 3 months to save the money.
I went in to Liverpool (not THAT one, the one in south-west Sydney) on the bus, with my mum. I remember handing the money over. It came with a beautiful book of photographs, called Get Back.
I remember the bus ride home, staring at the book. I thought it was the most beautiful book I’d ever seen. When we got home, I put the album on. Then I played it again. And again. That’s a huge memory from my life-long love of music. And The Beatles.
Cheers from South Australia!
Thanks Dave! I love that. And your book still looks perfect. That's a lot of care for a 12 year old boy! ~ karen
OK, that took a bit of mental (and Google) dredging as it was a very long time ago now and there were five albums, purchased all at once, under the guidance of my incredibly musically hip cousin. I had scavenged pop bottles all summer and Christopher took me to A & B Sound at Oakridge in the fall of 1973 (I think) to spend my hoard. There was much discussion and I ended up purchasing the following:
Deep Purple - Machine Head; Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy; Uriah Heep - Demons and Wizards; a Black Sabbath album that I think must have been Vol 4 and Lighthouse - One Fine Morning.
I did not become a big fan of hard rock as a result of this, Lighthouse ended up being much more my style, but it has given me considerable cred over the years amongst my children's friends and my younger friends who are fans that I knew those albums when they were new. Some happy memories of that shopping trip though.
My first album was Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Waters". I'll never forget asking my Mom why the word "war" was spelled "whore".
What did that mean? Don't remember her answer but I do remember she was quite uncomfortable. I was 12.
Whipped Cream and Other Delights by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. There was a naked woman on the front with strategically placed blobs of cream. I thought that was SO exciting and have no idea how my parents let me keep it. Interesting side note, my husband had a cousin in LA who was his private secretary (among other famous people over the years) a bazillion years ago.