What Was The First Album You Ever Purchased?

I'm not talking about the first record you ever had, or the first one you ever listened to. What I am talking about is the first album you ever bought with your own money at a record store...there actually used to be record stores you know. A store where all they sold was music...how weird right? Anyway when I was a kid we had 3 choices: Vinyl, 8-Track and Cassette...actually there was 4 if you include 45's. A 45 was a smaller vinyl that had a single on it and usually a B-Side track that wouldn't be released on the album. Wow, way confusing. I personally didn't like 8-tracks and actually neither did most people. Their sound was horrible, they had four sides and were a clunky plastic lump that would often break. I mostly did Vinyl and Cassettes. Vinyl was something special. They were large, usually having elaborate art and sometimes opened up like a book. Part of buying an album back
then was the entire experience. Going to the store. Flipping through the records. Listening to the music playing. Chatting with the guy (or girl) at the register about how cool your purchase was. Immediately going home, dropping the needle and blasting it as loud as you could in your room. Of course those days are long gone but the memories linger. Now by the time of my first purchase I already had amassed a small collection of records and tapes that I had either gotten at birthdays or from my parents. I even had a box of records that I had found at an apartment that we had moved into. It was 1981, I think, when I first ventured into the record store in my local mall, telling my Mom that I would meet her in the grocery store in a few. It was a momentous occasion. I walked out with a large paper bag filled with Styx' Paradise Theatre and I remember part of the reason for buying it was the cool art on the cover. Plus back then band names and logo's were really important. I spent alot of time in class (a LOT of time) drawing my favorite bands names on my blue binders...for instance: Led Zeppelin, ACDC, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Styx...at that point the Beatles were passe so I didn't write them down. Anyway I met my Mom at Grand Union, picked out some cereal and then headed home for a listen. There was nothing like that first listen and everything hinged on that moment. We didn't have the internet for a preview and were basically taking a chance hoping that the rest of the album wouldn't suck but for the two tracks already released on the 45. That certainly happened, but so what. My second record of memory was the first cassette I ever bought and I am only mentioning it because of circumstance. When you are a kid, prior to your working years, money comes from various sources. Parents, Grandparents, Birthdays, Mowing Lawns, Shoveling Snow....well you get the point. We are told that it is important to save that money for a special occasion or for when you really want something. I never saved any money, a fact that I continue to struggle with. So when I came upon a wad of cash on the floor in front of me at the mall I didn't think about putting it away, I immediately ran to Sam Goody and bought Pyromania from Def Leppard on Cassette. Why not on Vinyl? Because the wad was only 8 singles and the record cost $10 bucks. Thus began my foray into the world of the less expensive Cassettes and into the world of the Walkman. Besides I always had to set aside some money for the arcade, but thats another story altogether.