INXS and U2, and then I was nuts over The Red Hot Chilli Peppers for most of jr. high and high school

The Who, age 12. My older brothers had most of their records so I would listen to those. They'd have killed me if they found out the way I treated those albums. My friends hated listening to music at my house since they wanted to hear Def Leppard or Twisted Sister, which I eventually caved in to.

I always thought that was a cool album cover.

I used to really like Talk Talk back in the early '80s, even after I started getting into hardcore punk.

My mom reports that I spazzed out in near ecstacy when I first heard The Rolling Stones 'Satisfaction' in 1969 when I was two years old. --I blame them completely not only corrupting my childhood, but for my continued subsequent compulsive need to hear loud guitars, pounding drums, and screamed vocals. --It's much more addicting than Heroin, Crack, or Nicotine.

Matt larcombe wrote:Again, nearly all these first bought albums are in rotation in my changer. What made you abandon greatness?

Even Terence Trent D'Arby?

Beatles.

The Beatles were the first rock band I'd ever really listened to. I first got an album of theirs in fifth grade. Fifth fucking grade. So, relatively, I am a latecomer to rock. I've certainly tried making up for that with compulsively listening to every record I can get my hands on and yet there are still classic records like Tommy that I've still never listened to. I only started really listening to CCR a couple days ago.

The first band I was fanatical about was Pink Floyd. I started with Animals. It blew my fucking mind off my shoulders then and still remains my favorite Floyd album outside of Piper at the Gates of Dawn - and I hated that when I first heard it. Only song I thought had a half-decent riff was "Interstellar Overdrive." Forgive me, I was in tenth grade and everyone else was into Limp Bizkit. I was terminally uncool in a school full of dorks.

The first two albums I got were Pyromania and Thriller when I was a wee lad of maybe 9 years?

However, I never reall y liked them. Even up 'til 6th grade I was never crazy about music. Then one day in the seventh grade my friend gave me two cassette that his mom was making him get rid of because she didn't want them in the house. They were the Dead Milkmen "Big Lizard in My Backyard" and PIL "Live in Tokyo."

That's the first time I really remember hearing music and having it mean anything.

Ben Adrian

Edit: Duh Van Halen, 1984. I used to jump around to that album holding a broom.

Kiss.

My mom bought me my first record (Destroyer) in 1980ish.

I was 3.

The first two cassettes i ever got were LL cool J's "Im Bad" and The Dead Milkmen's " Big Lizard In My Backyard"