'Meet The Beatles'. It was the beginning of my revolution.

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THE BYRDS GREATEST HITS

Dad bought it for me at the Rexall Drug Store
for $3.99. I remember he put his shoe polish back
because he didn't have enough money for both.

The first music I listened to was indeed captured on vinyl but it belonged to my father. His collection filled one full wall of our home when I was a child (not to mention the stacks in the basement). I remember pulling down record after record in our living room and placing them on the turn table, when I was old enough. I would sit in front of our monstrosity of a stereo system wearing headphones that were nearly the size of my head. Indian style I sat for hours listening to those giant discs spin songs of love, lose, and other things I would only understand decades later.

Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Mark Heard, and all the hundreds of others - they were captured on my father's vinyl. They were the center piece of my home, they were my introduction to music. My father worked in a record store and eventually he started bringing home cassette tapes for me to keep in my room. I was listening to pop radio then but despite my bad taste he would bring home the cassettes I wanted to listen to. I would blare all the songs my father no-doubt hated from my room and on the car radio and he'd just grove. He'd ask what they were singing about which most of the time I couldn't answer.

I don't remember the first cassette he brought home, they just came. I don't remember the first album I listened to, they were just there. I do remember the first cassette I bought for myself. I bought R.E.M.'s Out of Time at a grocery store. That was the first time I spent my own money for music. Today my sizable CD collection doesn't have as much pop music and it looks a lot more like my father's. It's still quite a bit smaller - he works in radio now and although his collection is now CDs it still fills a wall in their home. When I go home I can still raid his collection for new music. I can still sit with huge headphones and listen for hours to the songs spinning from those silver discs.

I was at my Grandma's place. I think I was about 8 then and my 17-year-old cousin had brought her guitar along. She took out a book and told me to pick any song in it, and she would play it for me. My choice, of course, was totally random. And it happened to be Yellow Submarine. That was my first memory of a music that I loved.
The first album that I got? A Hard Day's Night. Revolver turned out to be my third.

My mum bought me The Junglebook OST when I was a kid, around the time the film was first released I suppose. It's still a favourite.

Please, Please Me

Yes, the Beatles very first album. Produced in 19mumble and played to absolute death on the turntable my father built for me. Mono reproduction of a stereo record, but it was terrific, in fact, still is.

Use Your Illusion I

The first album I ever owned was the first half of the 1991 Guns N' Roses double album. It was mostly loud, sometimes quiet and Axl Rose swore. It was perfect for my rebellious 14 year old self, learning to listen to music as a means of self-expression and self-definition, anything to get me away from the classical music I was raised on and was tired of.

I still have that album - and it's still great. It's mostly still loud, sometimes quiet and Axl Rose still swears.

There aren't many bands like Guns N' Roses around these days and more is the pity.