I remember Paint your wagon well and can still sing the lyrics to wandering star.
Stranglers: brilliant. I saw them 20 times in my teenage years and Peaches was the 2nd single I purchased.
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Love reading all the answers to my OP. Didnt realise so many people would respond.
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Oh, this is such a āGood āOl Daysā type of thread, Ian!!! Iām really enjoying every response!!! Lots of fun to be had!!!
I recall getting into so much trouble onceā¦ as a young teenager, I was at my cousins house - he lived out in the country & we were out in the woods squirrel hunting. My aunt & grandmother used to make squirrel stew with cornbreadā¦ I knowā¦ sounds pretty disgusting but it was a delicious meal!
Anyway, my cousin had a burlap sack with him that was supposed to be for the squirrels to go intoā¦ unbeknownst to me, he had a few dozen of his sisterās 45sā¦ we took āem out & used them for target practice!!! Many we flung into the air in a makeshift skeet shoot, in hindsight , I canāt believe that we didnāt manage to shoot each other!!!
Later that weekend, the sister wanted to play a couple of songs & it all came outā¦ first & only time I was ever punished by caning! I had welts on my behind that lasted for a couple of weeks!
Gotta say though, most of those 45s deserved to be a target!!! Leslie Gore, Petula Clark, Brenda Lee, Joni Mitchellā¦ all those girly singers that 12, 13 & 14 year old boys had no use for!!! I think we spared ABBA, Janis Joplin & Cher though!!! 
Tod
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Wow, that was unwise! That was one irritated sister I assume. I do agree with the āno lossā opinion though.
I did the same to my Sammy Hagar album I won from a radio station. It was not to my liking. At least it was mine. 
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We used several LPs as frisbees. One was my Sham69 album which was really bad, but I think we also might have used some of my sisterās 70ās boy band albums 
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1st record was the red album (beatles) but Iām a little young for records(40), I didnāt start collecting them until I was 13 and CDās were already out.
My first album was BAD on cassette tape
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I canāt remember owning any singles, they made no sense to me - just two songs when for about double the money you could get the entire album. The first album I owned was a birthday present - Culture Club Kissing to be Clever when it was just released. That was the start of hunting down and collecting records - I probably bought more records in car boot sales than actual record shops. Then forward to the 90s and CDs were the new thing - I snobbishly held out for quite a while but eventually bought a CD player because the vinyls were just harder and harder to get. I kept the records but they were played less and less as all the new music was on CDs. Eventually sold it all off when I moved to London in the early 00s - tiny flat and all that. Would I still listen to them if I still had them? Absolutly not the Culture Club! I would smash it against the wall! But I would love to listen to all the old ZZTop albums (car boot sales!) again - pre remastered as they were for the CD releases - or first editions of the Violent Femmes first few albums. Just not the same on CD let alone MP3 or streamed.
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Wow James Last ā¦ that IS a trip down memory lane!
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That wasnāt the case when I was a kid. A single was 98Ā¢, and an album was about $5.00. I was far more likely to have 98Ā¢ to spare than 5 bucks, and a lot of the album cuts were just filler material, a lot of it not very good.
Iām more from the CD era (and still buy them, having just short of 600 in my collection). For the record however, these were my format āfirstsā that I voluntarily purchased myself in chronological order of acquirement:
LP Cassette : Prince Charming - Adam & The Ants
12" LP: Nursery Cryme - Genesis
12" single: Market Square Heroes - Marillion
7" single : Touch Me (I Want Your Body) - Samantha Fox 
CD: Vigilante - Magnum
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Oh no! 
you shot Joni MItchell, but spared Cher! It must have been fun at the time though 
@Gunhild Wow! a signed Pet Shop Boys single is pretty cool! It would have been a great concert too!
My first LPs were a self-titled All About Eve album and Donāt Say No by Tom Tom Club, Iām not sure which I got first. And I think my first 7" was Purple Rain by Prince.
I still have them somewhere and would probably still play them if I had a record player, assuming theyād still be playable.
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This is how I remember it as well.
My wife got me a necklace years ago that I lost in Lake Tahoe. A lot of people didnt know what it was. Its funny because I had people claim it was all sort of things and questions me about it thinking it was satanic symbols and fringe right wing nazi group stuff. I never answered them just because they were foolish. I should replace it.
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Yes Jasmine @AvalonJ ,
We shot Joni Mitchell!!!
I think we may have shot āI Shot the Sheriffā too!!! It was always fun plinking in the woods with our .22s. That day, any time we missed, we claimed that the bullet went through the hole in the middle of the single! What was less fun back then was coming back in the late afternoon and having to remove all the ticksā¦ weād have āem all over our backs & legs 
ā¦ it was awful!
Tod
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I definitely remember my first LP. It was 'Kiss: Alive". I no longer have it, and wish I did (although I wore the grooves out of it). Soon after was ELPās Brain Salad Surgery. I never bought singles. Well, thereās one 45 that Iām embarrassed to mention: Gino Vanelliās āThe Wheels of Lifeā.
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I remember mine and I still have it I dug it out today to show it, 1975 I think im not far wrong, and I loved it
Cheers HEC
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I never owned a single, but my first LP was āWhatās Going On?ā - Marvin Gaye. My brother destroyed it because he said I played it too much. 
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Mean
Call him and tell him he owes you a new Marvin Gaye LP and new turntable to play it on to make up for that.
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Not that iām old but my first ever record was Legend of Xanadou by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. But then i`m old enough to remember those booths where you could record your own single Lol
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You have some cool first vinyl choices Ian - and to still have them is great.
I do remember Bay City Rollers - of course!
I sold all of my vinyl about fifteen years ago prior to a house move. I sold all of my proper hi-fi system separates too and so had nothing to play them on. Many were irreplaceable and valuable. Oh well. Cāest la vie. I told myself at the time not to get sentimental about it nor feel regret and I havenāt.
My first 7" ā¦ I did have a few and um not fully sure which was first, if I bought them or if my brother did. My parents had a shop in Eston and there was a record shop round the corner so me, my brother and sister all bought several around the same time and shared them.
Some that I do remember as early ones ā¦
Status Quo - Down Down
Sailor - Girls, Girls, Girls
12"
I distinctly remember the first I bought with āintentā was done to shock my parents ā¦ I knew nothing of the band, their not yet fully publicised reputation and definitely not the musical content ā¦ it was the lurid, brash record cover and title that made me buy Never Minds The Bollocks Hereās The Sex Pistols. It was released October 1977 so I will have been twelve.
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Thatās hilarious. My cousin (same age as me & you) bought the Sex Pistols album as well and his mum made him wrap the cover in brown paper like we used to use for wrapping parcels.
I only have it on CD.
Itās funny to see what was shocking at that time compared to now.
Vinyl sales are going up and up. Here in Lausanne we have at least 3 second hand vinyl shops. Loads of new albums are now released on vinyl. I hate shopping, but I love going to browse in record shops. Thereās something nice about listening to vinyl on a totally analogue hifi, even if itās digitally recorded. It has a warm sound you can never get with digital, even if the quality isnāt as good. My brother-in-law scoffs at me for that.
Some new vinyl I bought has been excellent quality. Much better than when they were more mass produced. The vinyl is thicker and I guess the recording technology has got so much better. I recently bought a Joanne Shaw Taylor album - Black and Gold - and the quality of the recording is amazing and how it sounds on vinyl is fantastic.
I inherited a super expensive hifi from my Dad. Itās made by Quad (originally a UK company), with electrostatic speakers - all dating from the late 70ās and early 80ās. The turntable is a very expensive Sony (not Quad) and surprisingly it turns out to be a model which still fetches quite a sum 2nd hand today. So do the other components. Actually Quad is an amazing company. They still service and refurbish my electrostatics that were designed in 1957 and built in 1977, even though they are now Chinese owned. Quite surprising in this day and age. You would expect that the new owners would have immediately put a stop to that. All the circuit a^diagrams are available too. At that time, Sony also supplied all the circuit diagrams and most of the components can still be obtained.
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