This is what precipitated the "first purchase" story in the other thread. Used to get jazzed whenever this came on my AM/FM transistor radio. Best opening song ever.

That's cuz he was singing it to Morrissey.

i believe i was randomly searching through albums on amazon.com when i was a sophomore in high school, when i came across pavement's "brighten the corners". i heard a snippet of "shady lane", which instantly reminded me of hearing it played on the radio (yes, it was played on 92.3 k-rock in new york after its release) a few years earlier. it was one of those songs where you really liked it but not once did you ever hear who performed it. anyway, i instantly recognized it and my rationale must have been something like "ok, a band who has this song couldn't possibly be terrible" and i purchased the album from the mall not too late after my discovery. i had not heard of them previously, nor was i exposed to anything of its indie ilk at that point.

i bought the album and listened to it so goddamned often that i can remember things i was doing on certain days i was listening to it (i seem to recall playing half-life on my pc followed by a trip to ihop while i listened to it on my portable cd player one day). it was perfection. i can't remember which of their albums i bought next, as "terror twilight" came out that year, which excited me, but after a month or two i owned their entire catalogue.

i remember my graphic arts teacher that year allowed us to bring cds at the end of the year to play on the stereo and i brought "btc" which, needless to say, was not the most well received aural accompaniment. in that same class, one of my projects was an album cover for a ten-year retrospective album, which from what i can remember, was pretty cool looking. i forget what i had called it.

the moral of the story is that pavement's "brighten the corners" is the album that got me into music to the extent that i am today, and pavement, the band, gave me the hope that someday i just might be able to produce music as incredible as theirs.

Further proof that my favorite pretty boys have permeated modern music as we know it (at least from the 80s onward).

faith no more angel dust
or
public enemy yo bum rush the show

Music "hit" me a pretty young age. But I think in about 1987 these all hit me at the same time which probably explains why I like the shit I do:

Run DMC - Raising Hell
U2 - Joshua Tree
Metallica - Master of Puppets
REM - Document

Man, we really were raised on the same stuff.

i think it was when i loved "undone (the sweater song)" by weezer and all my friends thought it was trash cause "the drummer's just running around stupid." then i got that first album and was blown away. that's when i started digging for more.

Not sure, but I think it was one of these three:

Aqualung by Jethro Tull
We Sold Our Souls for Rock 'N' Roll by Black Sabbath
Rocks by Aerosmith

I mean, when music is powerful enough to actually scare you, there's got to be something there that's as strong as life itself.

I wasn't really that into music until later in high school...but I always loved INXS and U2.

Those two plus Licensed to Ill prepped my appetite for what was coming up. What really did it for me, though, was NIN's Pretty Hate Machine and Jane's Addiction's Ritual De Lo Habitual.

The first album that was MY music (and not my parents'):
Judas Priest - Point Of Entry

Appropriate title, eh? Also inspired me to pick up the guitar. And then, picking up the guitar inspired me to seek out other music too.

David Bowie - The Man Who Sold The World
Larry Norman - Only Visiting This Planet
Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
Jethro Tull - Stand Up

Yeah, and a bunch more way back. I've liked music a long time, even when I wasn't allowed to listen to the radio.

I was 11 or 12 when my parents got me my first stereo, and the first album that I really played to death was, Neil Young's "Harvest", specifically the song "Alabama" affected me in an emotional way. Then soon after I went over t a friends house and heard Dark Side of the Moon and Ziggy Stardust for the first time. Game, Set. Match!!!

Me too! Kiss was the first band that I was completely obssesed with. I was like 12 and I met this dude down the street in my hood who kinda liked em and he let me listen to one of their albums. It took me about a month to get everything they had ever put out to that point, which was like 20-something albums. I was hooked. Still have em too, but rarely listen to them. And by rarely I mean never.

A lot of people here know this. I am not ashamed.

matchbox twenty (then, matchbox 20) - Yourself Or Someone Like You

Your Rob-loyalty nearly inspires me to point out that I loved Bread when I was a kid. Nearly.

Kiss for me, too. Probably Destroyer, Alive II, and the s/t instead of the ones you mentioned, though. Oh, and Love Gun.

At around 4 or 5 Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass held me under the musical water til I drowned. "A Taste of Honey" and "Zorba the Greek" still do it for me.

As far as indie, it had to be Pavement's Watery, Domestic EP. Those opening noises of "Texas Never Whispers" made my neck do the Linda Blair thing.

I even bought his solo disc, Phil. Though I have yet to listen to it...

But I am here because of them and for that, I cannot hate them.

<----hums "London Bridge" and "Aubrey" like a good little 70's white boy.

I can't say for certain that there was a single solitary song that set me off. I was't able to really consummate my fanaticism until I started earning some income, but I know I was obsessed with music way before I had any means to feed the addiction.

Some songs that affected me early on would include:

Vacation - The Go Go's
Wild Boys - Duran Duran
One Night in Bangkok - Chess Soundtrack
Johnson's Aeroplane - INXS
When the Levee Breaks - Led Zeppelin
Close to Me - The Cure
Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want - The Smiths
Like the Weather - 10,000 Maniacs

So, we're talking roughly 1985-1988 (sixth through eighth grade for me).

I'm not surprised to see a number of references to INXS and the Cure in previous posts.

if i were to pick something i can remember, it'd probably be prince's "purple rain", especially after seeing the "when doves cry" video at my uncle's. (my parents didn't have cable.)

But Stacey, did you also purchase the "bonus" disc that Target was selling???

Hmm. Dunno if this is exactly the answer to what you are asking, but it all really began with R.E.M.'s "Eponymous" for me.