What was the first "grown-up" album you bought?

Dudess

The reason I use the term "grown-up" is I think most people would have got presents of/saved up for albums when they were little kids - for my age group it was Bad by Michael Jackson (everyone got it). For those a few years older it was often a Mini Pops record, and then for people of all ages it would have been a Now That's What I Call Music-type compilation.
But what was the album you bought/asked for when you started to develop a real love for music? When you were no longer influenced by your peers and just wanted to get it of your own accord? When the "tasters" offered by a compilation weren't enough and you needed a band's/musician's entire album to get your teeth into?

Mine was Cosmic Thing by The B52s when I was 12. It was 1990, the year they brought out Love Shack, which is a fairly lame song, but they followed that up with the utterly brilliant Roam which I just adored. Found the album to be a very mixed bag - great tracks like Roam with just the two girls' harmonies and sans that irritating guy who keeps shouting; not so great tracks along the lines of Love Shack attempting to be all "wacky" (and featuring that irritating guy shouting). But I picked up a few more albums by them (they were all going for next to nothing) and discovered some absolute gems. Eccentric American pop appealed to me (and still does) and at the time, They Might Be Giants had a really big hit with Birdhouse in Your Soul. The red-haired one out of B52s also guested on REM's Shiny Happy People at the time, as well as a track called Candy by Iggy Pop. Great voice.

After that, my interest in indie began and I kick-started that with Some Friendly by The Charlatans - utter genius album.

Xavi6

Oasis - What's The Story (Morning Glory) on casette. Followed by Definitely Maybe on CD.

Got into other Britpop acts soon after. Likes of Suede and Pulp and that. Woulda been late 95/early 96 when I was ten. Not bad taste for a young fella!

Creamy Goodness

my first proper buy was

weezer - blue album
nirvana - in utero
metallica - ride the lightning

i was 8 at the time and all three were bought at the same time.

still listen to all of them too.

Dudess

8? Impressive! When I was 8 it was crap chart rubbish all the way (and in 1986, chart rubbish was particularly bad - you're lucky you were only born around then; meanwhile I'm scarred... )
But I remember discovering the delights of good music when I was 10 too, my brothers had Pixies' Doolittle on a loop around that time and I liked what I heard (along with Kylie, Jason, Bros, Sonia... ).

Sherifu

Coldplay - Parachutes.

Creamy Goodness

Dudess wrote: »

8? Impressive! When I was 8 it was crap chart rubbish all the way (and in 1986, chart rubbish was particularly bad - you're lucky you were only born around then; meanwhile I'm scarred... )
But I remember discovering the delights of good music when I was 10 too, my brothers had Pixies' Doolittle on a loop around that time and I liked what I heard (along with Kylie, Jason, Bros, Sonia... ).

yeh my brothers shaped my music listening really,

my oldest brother got me into metallica by constantly playing it.

then my other brother got me into nirvana by constantly playing their songs in his band.

weezer was a choice i made on my own, i saw the undone video and that was that.

John

Dudess wrote: »

for my age group it was Bad by Michael Jackson (everyone got it).

I still have my copy. That, Thriller and a Jean Michel Jarre album were my first albums. In 6th class I got into Prodigy and Nick Cave. Grew out of the Prodigy (or rather they have become ****) but still love Nick Cave.

Dudess

Shortly after Bad I got Kylie - I don't care. Some stormin' tracks there!

Bren_M.Records

Kinda scary that I cant remember what my first album was.
I can remember the band though, The Jam.

gordon_gekko

Dudess wrote: »

8? Impressive! When I was 8 it was crap chart rubbish all the way (and in 1986, chart rubbish was particularly bad - you're lucky you were only born around then; meanwhile I'm scarred... )
But I remember discovering the delights of good music when I was 10 too, my brothers had Pixies' Doolittle on a loop around that time and I liked what I heard (along with Kylie, Jason, Bros, Sonia... ).

chart rubbish in 1986 was a lot better than chart rubbish nowadays
you cant beat the 80,s for catchy throwaway crap

Dudess

Oh yeah the 80s was the biz for great pop - except for that one year, 1986. It was horrible! http://www.pure80spop.co.uk/chart1986jan-june.htm

GrahamThomas

First proper album I ever bought was The Verve's "Urban Hymns", I was about 11 at the time, listened to it non-stop for months!

Aaaah memories....

IanCurtis

This was the first grown-up album I bought, aged 14.



And bloody good it is too.

Hermy

Dire Straits Brothers In Arms and Eric Clapton Cream of Eric Clapton were the first two albums I ever owned, bought on cassette in the mid '80s when I was eleven or twelve. I only wanted Brothers In Arms for the song Money For Nothing but I soon began to enjoy the whole the album and it remains a favourite of mine to this day. I wanted Cream of Eric Clapton for Layla which about that time featured in a tv advert for Vauxhall cars and for Behind The Mask, a single released that same year. Of course this compilation album got me into Cream, Blind Faith, and Derek and the Dominos among other things. I never managed to get my hands on a cd copy of this compilation as later reissues included Bell Bottom Blues and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot and left out Forever Man and Behind The Mask.

Dudess, I thought 1986 was a great year for pop. Clicking on that link of yours I picked out the following gems:
West End Girls - Pet Shop Boys
Broken Wings - Mr.Mister
The Captain Of Her Heart - Double
Chain Reaction - Diana Ross
Pull Up To The Bumper - Grace Jones
Absolute Beginners - David Bowie
Digging Your Scene - Blow Monkeys
Rock Me Amadeus - Falco
Peter Gun - Art Of Noise & Duane Eddy
Lessons In Love - Level 42
Holding Back The Years - Simply Red
Everybody Wants To Run The World - Tears For Fears
Papa Don't Preach - Madonna
Let's Go All The Way - Sly Fox
Camouflage - Stan Ridgway
You Can Call Me Al - Paul Simon
Walk Like An Egyptian - Bangles
Breakout - Swing Out Sister
French Kissin' In The USA - Debbie Harry
Sometimes - Erasure
Open Your Heart - Madonna

Dudess

Yeah, some quality tunes there I suppose. I challenge anyone to find me a pop song of a higher calibre than Rock Me Amadeus. I'm serious! But there was a bit of an over-saturation of Huey Lewis & The News that year (never a good thing) and the mullet was far too widespread and accepted...

Brothers in Arms is one of the best songs ever written. And there are some other absolute corkers on that album. Ah, that was back when you could get tapes through Texaco by collecting those "tiger" tokens! We got several of them - the aforementioned Brothers in Arms, Born in The USA, A-Ha's Hunting High and Low, Graceland, Like A Virgin and... erm... Hits 4 .
1985 was the year of the monster album - Brothers in Arms, Born in The USA and Like A Virgin were all brought out then. I was seven and a pop fanatic - ah, halcyon days!

Hermy

I loved Rock Me Amadeus back then but West End Girls is my favourite from that era, maybe closely followed by Papa Don't Preach and Captain Of Her Heart.
I remember getting this Springsteen box set through some petrol station promotion:


I distinctly remember getting those aforementioned first two albums (one was a birthday present and the other a Christmas gift), but I don't have a clue what came after that. I also remember friends of mine at the time having a copy of Thriller on vinyl and that got played to death one year during school holidays.

Bard

First LP I bought was Now That's What I Call Music 13 (yes, twenty years ago)... found the cover (and all the other covers) here - ahhh the nostalgia!

Parsley

Methinks it was U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind, if memory serves. I listened to it over and over and over...

Dudess

Bard wrote: »

First LP I bought was Now That's What I Call Music 13 (yes, twenty years ago)... found the cover (and all the other covers) here - ahhh the nostalgia!

Oh wow! Great find. Yeah, we had 5 and 6 (1985) and 17 (1990). 5 was fairly atrocious, 6 was quite bad bar tracks from Kate Bush and Siouxsie and the Banshees, and 17 was wicked - it had Primal Scream, Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets, The House of Love and Orbital.

Scubadevils

The first I actually bought myself was 'Seventeen Seconds' by The Cure when I was about 11 in 1989 or so. Still love that album.

Dudess

Oh yeah I got a tape recording of Disintegration in 1989 when I was also 11 - but tape recordings don't count...

Scubadevils

I also got a tape recording of Disintegration about that time, and a few others by the Cure... then copied 'The Queen is Dead' by The Smiths from a mates older sister (who I fancied then ).

Rustar

Man, you peeps are young.

The first album I ever bought was The Fifth Dimension's Greatest Hits.

A couple of years later I really started getting into music other than classical and jazz and went out and bought two recent albums, In The Court of the Crimson King and Yes's Close to the Edge.

Dudess

I was beginning to feel like one of the oldest people here (born 1978) so thank you!

humberklog

Plastic Bertrand- An1. Bought in '82 2nd hand in freebirds then on Grafton st. £3.I was 12.(rest easy dudess).I wanted something else (Culture Club -kissing to be clever)but as my much older musiciany brothers were with me, they made me buy plastic bertrand instead. It was an important intervention as i was strarting secondary school the same year and Plastic Bertrand had a lot more kudos than Culture Club.(Well on the northside anyway)
Plastic Bertrand was the 1st of a few Belgian bands to make my collection. Check out Laid Back-Bakerman for a crackin tune and brilliant vid.

Dudess

Is that the one featuring them as parachuters?

Yeah, I know Ca Plane Pour Moi - great tune.

humberklog

That's the one. Always get a few butterflys when the plane moves off in distance. The female vocals are gorgeous.
Another band (although dutch)that were good around then was The Nits. Saw them and laid back in same summer. Good in a 'europeans going mad' type way.
Plastic Bertrand rimind me a lot of Noir Desir. And as the singer is outta prison now i think they'll be releasing soon.

stovelid

I think it was Purple Rain, by Prince. I got it from a friend a year or two after it was out. Probably around 85. I think he was the first musician I was really into (as a fan, as opposed to just liking the music).

All the other stuff I loved during that period, like breakdance/electro, Northern Soul, 2-tone, and the pop songs of the time never really encouraged abject fandom like him.

Dudess

humberklog wrote: »

That's the one. Always get a few butterflys when the plane moves off in distance. The female vocals are gorgeous.
Another band (although dutch)that were good around then was The Nits. Saw them and laid back in same summer. Good in a 'europeans going mad' type way.

Gotta love that eccentric 80s funk from Europe. I presume you're a fan of Yello?

JeanH

I got into 'grown up' music fairly early. I purchased Separations by Pulp in 1996, a while before my 10th birthday. I did have to save for a ridiculous length of time to buy it because I seem to remember it costing approx £14. CDs were dearer then. I got into Pulp in September 1995 when I saw them performing Mis-Shapes on TOTP.
Separations was released in 1992. It's a more dance/pop album, a bit different to their other stuff. I highly recommend the track 'Death II' for anyone who hasn't heard Separations.
I was lucky to have an older brother and cousin that I hung around with regularly and they bought all the Lightning Seeds and Oasis stuff.
Ah I loved the mid-Nineties. Still do.
I used to ask for Pulp albums for Christmas and saved up for others so that's how I built up my Pulp collection! After Pulp I suppose New Order, Queen, Bowie and Moz were next in line and I have gradually built up my collection of these artists in particular.

Dudess

I feel the same way about the late 80s/early 90s as you do about the mid 90s (which I just associate with the leaving cert and teenage angst...)
I suppose your pre-teens is a nice age to be. And I find myself so drawn to the rock from the time when I was aged 10-12. Maybe that's the particular point when music makes an impression on you. I'll never grow tired of stuff from that time - Pixies, The Cure, Stone Roses, meh, wish it was '89 again...