Make sure you check out the full list, there are some big names towards the bottom that shouldn’t be missed. These include, Joey Tempest, Foy Vance and the brilliant John Waite.
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Leo Abrahams
Nik Kershaw – Human Racing (I was 7).
I used to listen to it every single day on the way to school and I still think it’s brilliant.

Rachel Austin
Louis Armstrong: What a Wonderful World. At the age of 9, I was struck by the sweeping beauty of this song in contrast to Louis’s raspy voice. To my youthful delight, I fell in love with the whole of this album.

Wallis Bird
Tori Amos – ‘’ I’d listened to my sister’s ‘Boys for Pele’ and decided to buy her new album myself.
It’s extremely dynamic and meant a lot to me.

Katherine Blamire (Smoke Fairies)
I got £1 a week pocket money, so it was kind of tricky to get them. I think the first album I actually bought was a panpipe compilation album called “The Haunting Sound of the Panflute”. I bought it because they were selling it in the market for £1. It wasn’t very haunting, just kind of reverb soaked high pitched annoyingness.

Ciaran Brady (Heritage Centre)
REM “Automatic for the people. Start to finish cracking songs that takes you on a journey, with arrangements from John Paul Jones on the way. TOP DRAWER!

Paul Carrack
‘Please please me’ by the Beatles. I have a brother 4 years older than me that had already bought albums by ‘The Shadows’ and Buddy Holly’ which I loved but this was the first I’d bought with money saved from Christmas and birthday. I was already playing drums in a band at school and this album was the one that excited me and inspired me so much to want to be a musician. I played along to this album, played on a ‘Dansette’ record player, over and over again in the attic above the shop where we lived. It was the culmination of my childhood dream to get to play on tour with Ringo’s All Starr Band in 2003.

Ben Castle (Duke Special / Beth Rowley)
The first album i bought was Deepest Purple – The Very Best of Deep Purple. I was 9, it changed my life.
I was a boy obsessed. Now I’m a man obsessed.

Rich Dale (Escape Act)
Adam & The Ants – The absolutely brilliant Prince Charming album back in 1981. I guess i wanted to be a highway man or even a pirate when I was younger !
yarr ..

Jessica Davis (Smoke Fairies)
When I was young I was obsessed with the Carpenters. I think it was probably a carpenters album from Woolworths.


Cara Dillon
A Ha – Hunting High And Low, Morten Harket was so gorgeous. And their songs were brilliant. Also, my four sisters were mad about them and wouldn’t let me borrow their copies so I had to buy my own.

Joe Echo
Metallica ‘Kill em All’ I was Twelve years old when i bought my first Album. All my friends at school had already got their copies and we’re raving about how good it was. I still vividly remember opening that double sleeve vinyl LP, I remember how cool it looked, being shocked by the artwork and that sweet smell of the vinyl.

Tim Finn
Beatles For Sale….”Baby’s In Black” and “Eight Days A Week” spring to mind…the cover looked unattainably cool to a young lad in Te Awamutu..my kids sing those songs now, which is hugely enjoyable”

Declan Gallen (The Jane Bradfords)
Michael Jackson – Bad. I bought this on tape a year after it was released and played it so much that the tape broke in 6 months.
I cried for a week.

Ben Glover
The first album I purchased was “The Best Of Buddy Holly” after hearing his song “Everyday” in a film. I must have been about 12, can’t recall the film, but do remember it being the first time I actually had a compulsion to put my pocket-money into a record.

Jon Hammond (The Late Greats)
The first album i bought with my own money was Elastica’s self titled debut on cassette, i was 10 years old, my older sister was on her way to town and asked if wanted her to get me anything with the ten pound WhSmiths voucher i’d got for christmas.

Pete Ingo (Ingo Star Cruiser)
The first album i bought was Then Jerico’s “First (The Sound of Music)” after hearing the single “The Motive” on the radio as a impressionable 9 year old I felt compelled to sample the entire long player. To my ears it was simply the most wondrous cutting edge edgy music I had ever heard. I recently found a copy of the LP in a second hand store (the original copy being destroyed by a moldy slice of bread after using the insert as a toast rack) when listening again to it I felt slightly sick to discover that it was merly a cheap knock off of Simple Minds crossed with Duran Duran with added ponytails.

Messiah J and the Expert
The first album i bought was Michael Jackson BAD. I tried to learn off every word using the old ‘pause play’ method nd a scrap of paper. I remember my cousin slagging me off for having makie up words in all the songs and saying speed demon was the best track on it. Great album. side a 5 songs, side b 5 songs….can’t go wrong!

Steve Jones
I’m actually pretty relieved to announce that mine was “Regatta de Blanc” by The Police, which I bought with my 6th birthday money in January 1980. I used to force my dad to play “The SOS” song (Message In a Bottle) so loud that the needle would start jumping on the stereo and mum would come tearing in from some other corner of the house shouting “catch yourselves on!”. Alas I have to report that the same needle also jumped to the sounds of Madonna picture discs in due course, but even so, it was a decent start.

Nik Kershaw
The First album I ever bought was “Aladdin Sane” by David Bowie. To a fifteen year old middle class grammar school boy, Bowie was something truly exotic, otherworldly and inspiring. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.

Shana Levy (let’s go Sailing)
The first album I bought was Synchronicity by The Police. I was pretty obsessed with MTV and the video for “wrapped around your finger” was amazing. Not to mention I thought Sting would want to be my boyfriend despite the massive age difference and the fact that I was prepubescent.

Ricky McAuley (Panama Kings)
The first album i bought was nevermind by nirvana. This album has a great sense of drive and power from a drummers point of view. each song is magical!

Tom McShane
The first album I ever bought was Van Morrison’s Avalon Sunset and I bought it as a Christmas present for my mum when I was 8. I got it on vinyl then we copied it to tape so we could listen to it in the car and it became the soundtrack that part of my life, accompanying us on many journeys around our native Lecale District and beyond. I still love that album; the majestic transition from Coney Island to I’m Tired Joey Boy, the way the timing signature changes from the former to the latter, plays a trick on ears that still sends shivers down my spine.”

Ben Miles (The Late Greats)
Ryan and i had one of our first conversations at the tender age of 8 or 9 at school about our shared love of our then recently purchased beach boys greatest hits on cassette tape. In fact i think its how we first met. I remember driving my dad up the wall at the time from my insistency on him playing good vibrations on his stereo for me at least 10 times a day.

Gentry Morris
The first album I ever bought was “” by Counting Crows. I got hooked on that “Long December” song and bought the album right away…I think I must have been about 12 or 13 when it came out and it really jump started me wanting to write music.

Rory Nellis (Seven Summits)
The first album I bought was ‘The Muppet Show’ album (I was in to music from a very young age). I remember vividly my sister taking me to Our Price with my saved up pocket money to get hold of the masterpiece. Granted, it didn’t teach me everything I know about music, but I did learn what it was to own ‘recorded’ music. I just pulled it out again and it still stands up.

Cahir O’Doherty (Fighting with Wire)
The first album i ever bought was the first prodigy album, The Experience. It was a cassette tape and it was the late 80’s or early 90’s, I was big in to dance music at the time and the prodigy were doing something different. Their dance songs had structure and melody, also they played and toured like a proper band. They were my stepping stone into rock music! Classic!

Ciara O’Neill (Kitty and the Can Openers)
“Michael Jackson-Bad, Its the first record I can remember listening to I used to get my dad to play Smooth Criminal every night before I went to bed. Not the most appropriate song for a kid but I loved it!”

Rocky O’Reilly – (Oppenheimer)
Iron Maiden – Piece Of Mind. I was six years old, I’d saved my pennies in a jar. I couldn’t decide between P.O.M. and Somewhere In Time, The brain on the table inside swung it for me.

Manda Rin
The first album I bought was Madonna – Like a Virgin. I was an 80’s child growing up, so you can’t go wrong with that album! It was on cassette though which is very strange to think of now as I don’t even have a cassette player.

Rosie and the Goldbug
It was Californiacation by the Chillies. I listened to it on repeat. My flat mates hated me. I had to get my moneys worth. The cd was scratched to hell. I learnt where it skipped and shuffled over those bits.

Beth Rowley
First album I bought was The Bodyguard soundtrack on cassette- I must have been 8 or 9…I recently bought it again and its pretty funny…a real nostalgia trip.

Michael Shearer (Barefoot Confessor)
Zig and Zags ” Them Girls “. Big tunes and great cover art as I remember! I would like to say i’m joking but seeing as i was about ten when that came out it all fits into place unfortunately and i’d rather just be honest with you. However i would like another chance if allowed to tell you about the first ” serious ” album i bought, it was The Compleat Stone Roses. There have some of that!

Neil Smyth (The Gorgeous Colours)
First Album: Led Zeppelin – Remasters, ’This ‘greatest hits’ style release spans the bands entire career, and conveniently came out just when i discovered Zeppelin and was getting serious about guitar. It was exactly what i was looking for, and i duly milked the sh*t out of it.

Joey Tempest (Europe)
It was probably the live album “Made in japan” with Deep purple. I was amazed how well all the bandmembers played their instruments. I think it came out 1973, but I got it a few years later. We used to play this record at parties and start planning how we also could be a successful touring rockband.

Anthony Toner
‘The first proper album I ever bought was ‘Out of the Blue’ by The Electric Light Orchestra, when I was 13. The guitars and violins sounded so enormous I just had to have it. I played it so much that year that the whole album seeped under my skin like a tattoo. I can still sing along with most of it… which is not a pleasant noise.’

Juliet Turner
first album was the Everly Brothers Greatest Hits. My sisters and I listened to it non stop on holiday one summer and we still do the most emotive cover version of Ebony Eyes you have ever heard, with tear-inducing harmonies and we even include the announcement from the air traffic control tower.

Foy Vance
The first album I remember buying from my own money (if there is such a thing when you’re 10) was bought in Limerick and paid for with the pocket money I’d been given to last for the whole week. It was a compilation tape of Jackson 5 love songs. I got it from a petrol station on a hot summers day on the road home from a summer camp where I fell in love with Nicola Lavery. I bought it because it had ‘Farwell my summer Love’ on it… it was all very sweet until I got home and started listening to the Sex Pistols again, and forgot that she existed.

John Waite
The first record I bought was an e.p. it was called Shadows to the Four. They were the biggest band before the Beatles in Britain. It was instrumental guitar music. Their guitar player was the Hendrix of his day and inspired countless young boys to stand in front of the mirror playing a tennis racket pretending to be the one and only Hank B. Marvin. My brother and I went in on it together. It was the best music I’d heard in my young life. Well worth every penny.

Over to You:
A massive thanks for all the artists who took part it is interesting to see where it all started. Now it is over to you. What was the first album you bought and why ?

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