When I was in fourth grade, I think, I was nearing the end of my "obsessed with sports" phase (which nicely coincided with Penn State's football team going undefeated but being robbed of the national championship by both the stupid fucking AP poll and the coaches' poll). Anyway, the only tapes I had at that point were Michael Jackson's Dangerous, a Jackson 5 Compilation, an Amy Grant cassette, and Ace of Base's The Sign. But near the end of the school year, I started watching MTV every morning with my brother (who is four years older than me). MTV played Stone Temple Pilots' "Vaseline" video all the time at this point, and eventually, Purple was the first album I became truly obsessed with. I also remember playing Superunkown by Soundgarden and Vitalogy by Pearl Jam all the time at this point.

I still really like those records, but at the end of seventh grade, I discovered Sonic Youth, which drastically altered my listening habits.

Puff the Magic Dragon

Eye of the Tiger

Xanadu

This was around age 5. My Dad had borrowed some kind of video player and we watched Xanadu a few times on it. It was pretty cool.

I next remember getting into Michael Jackson around age 8, then Prince a few years later.. Good times.

One of my earliest memories is watching the Bohemian Rhapsody video on Top of the Pops when I was three years old. Apparently my sister used to get me to sing it on the bus when she took me into town; I used to sing the whole thing in its entirety.

While I was growing up, my two elder brothers were massive music fans. One was into The Jam, The Clash, the Specials, all that, and the other was into the Electric Light Orchestra and Status Quo. My sister was really into Rod Stewart. My mother used to listen to Gene Pitney all the time. The house was always full of music. It was a nice mix.

Then Adam and the Ants hit. Off we go.

As soon as I could walk I would go directly to my dad's old Fisher hi-fi and start playing with it, as it was the best toy in the house. Afraid I might break something on it, he taught me how to properly set up a record on the spindle and play it. This is all before I can remember. The first records I have a clear memory of listening to were "Daydream Believer" by The Monkees, and Shaun Cassidy's Da Doo Ron Ron LP.

Mom plays piano, dad plays sax, and half the family sings, so picking up an instrument and playing never took a second thought.

And I too got in to KISS Destroyer early on, about age 7. I wore out that cassette and Meat Loaf Bat Out Of Hell. I still regularly rock out to both.

Chapter Two, I think we must be very close in age as my early musical memories mirror yours almost exactly (I think every household with kids in the UK during the late 70s had a copy of Status Quo's Twelve Gold Bars and Queen's Greatest Hits). Adam & The Ants were a huge playground sensation and I co-opted them briefly along with concurrent fads for luminous socks and CB radio.

My elder brother was also one for The Jam, The Specials and The Who but I had to pretend I didn't like them being the rocker to his mod - the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal hit when I was about ten and that was it for the next few years.

The first band to truly feel like my own was The Buzzcocks - being a rural backwater there wasn't much in the way of youth culture and you had to more or less invent your own. As the rest of the country was lapping up New Order and The Smiths we still had the odd classroom freak into The Stranglers or 999. A kid called Daniel lent me a tape of Singles Going Steady when I was fourteen. That pretty much started the rot.

Several incidents (beyond listening to the radio while riding in the family car) come to mind:

1) At age ten I moved and in "setting up" my room I diverted an old clock radio to my bedside. I started listening to the radio before going to sleep. I remember hearing "New Kid In Town" often (it was new then) and thought it was about me.

2) On the first day of school after this move I walked into my classroom (which was kind of progressive) and heard the Magical Mystery Tour LP playing for the first time. First day of new school in a new place and the soundtrack is I Am The Walrus! It was a surreal experience.

3) Soon after a friend turned me on to other music in unusual ways. He used to do improv dances to ELP's Toccata. Also, we went tent camping in a field in the summer and stayed up all night laughing while "Yessongs" played on his cassette player. That strange new music combined with staying up all night made for an alien experience. Later, this guy moved away and by the time he returned for a visit I had really gotten into Yes ...he said he was now into punk. Thus began the next chapter.

My parents were into choral music. And all the most predictable classical stuff. Still hate Vivaldi.

My older brother turned me onto "skater" bands like Agent Orange when I was really young. My dad flipped when he found a Circle Jerks album under my bed. But my first big loves were CCR, Dylan, and Mr. Young, all of whom I eventually turned my dad onto. wtf.

3 of my parents' records we were allowed to touch. Bye Bye Birdie, The Music Man, and The Singing Nun.
In terms of DECENT music, I remember hearing some 'big kid' in the neighborhood cranking 'Hey Jude' and I lost track of what I was doing. I was walking over to the ice cream truck, and received no ice cream because of the Beatles. I had to stop and listen to the song so I could describe it to somebody later and find out who it was. Asking the 'big kid' must have been out of the question, or something.

Marlowe wrote:Several incidents (beyond listening to the radio while riding in the family car) come to mind:

1) At age ten I moved and in "setting up" my room I diverted an old clock radio to my bedside. I started listening to the radio before going to sleep. I remember hearing "New Kid In Town" often (it was new then) and thought it was about me.

2) On the first day of school after this move I walked into my classroom (which was kind of progressive) and heard the Magical Mystery Tour LP playing for the first time. First day of new school in a new place and the soundtrack is I Am The Walrus! It was a surreal experience.

1) I'm with you. I listened to AM radio before be every night from the early to mid 70s.

2) The first album I ever bought with my own money was Magical Mystery Tour. My dad heard me playing 'Strawberry Fields' and made me take the album back, since it was obviously warped. The guy at the Sears laughed and said that that's how it's supposed to sound. It seemed like such an old classic record at the time, but it was actually only out for about 5 years at that point.

the Monkees - eveerything they ever did
Michael Jackson - "Beat It" 45
The Who - "Who's Next" LP