Music notes

As I continue to read the John Peel autobiography, I'm reminded of how many years I've been listening to music and how important it is to me. It's hard to believe how, in my lifetime, we've gone from playing music on something the size of a dinner plate (roughly 10 songs), to something the size of a pack of cards (nearly 20,000 songs).

People rarely listen to albums all the way through any more - we're more likely to listen to songs on shuffle. We miss out on the flow from one song into another that makes some albums so great. Listening to, say, 'Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band' or 'Dark Side of the Moon', all chopped up and shuffled around defeats the whole purpose and concept of the 'album'. Nowadays, most bands put out CDs with clearly defined broken up songs with gaps in between - they're almost designed to be collections of songs rather than a stand-alone body of work.



First Album

The first album I ever got (rock album that is, 'Dougal and the Blue Cat' doesn't count) was Elvis Presley's Greatest Hits when I was nine years old. It almost seems a cliche to say that Elvis got me interested in rock music, but thats apparently what happened. I remember after he died in 1977, that BBC had a week long marathon of Elvis movies. The one that sticks in my mind the most is his performance of 'Trouble' in King Creole. That Christmas, along with an Evel Knievel stuntbike, I got the greatest hits double album pictured above. For whatever reason, the album labels were in French, so my first memories of Elvis were of him being Le Roi du Rock 'n' Roll.



First Cassette

The first cassette I ever owned was 'Parallel Lines' by Blondie. I think I got this for my birthday in 1979 and it's still one of my favorite albums of all time. I love how 'Hanging on the Telephone' opens the album - a telephone ringing twice, then Debbie Harry belting out 'I'm in the phonebooth, it's the one across the hall / If you don't answer I'll just ring it off the wall'. Then it goes straight into the great 'One Way or Another'. It's probably safe to say that Debbie Harry was my first serious crush. It doesn't get much hotter than Debbie Harry circa 1979, when you're an 11 year old boy.



First CD

My first CD was 'Whiplash Smile' by Billy Idol. Seems a little embarrassing, but at the time I just couldn't get enough of Billy. It's hard to imagine now, that after buying themselves CD players, people had to slowly but surely start buying CDs to replace their albums and cassettes. In any case, this was my first step towards building my CD collection. I remember thinking how cool the opening track 'World's Forgotten Boy' sounded in CD quality - especially those laser gun and pinball effects that Steve Stevens could do with his guitar. And I could listen to an album all the way through with turning it over halfway!

As for today's technology, I have no idea what the first mp3 I ever downloaded was. Kind of sad really.