What was the first 'Indie' record you bought?

hatful of hollow.yawn.

It may have been Fugazi's _In on the Kill Taker_, but my memory is cloudy. Also I don't recall feeling all that superior. Though clearly I was. :)

Well in a sense it was the Smiths - Hatful of Hollow again actually. But at that point I had no real idea of the concept of 'indie' so I didnt actually get a superiority kick at the time. It was only through researching the Smiths that I realised I should have done.

So the honour must go to the House Of Love's Creation album, which I bought in the full knowledge that it was Cool and Obscure (it had after all suggested so in Melody Maker).

The first time I felt 'Indie' buying a record was when I found The Who Maximum R&B box for 25 dollars used and intact. I mean, it was a 45-50 dollar set and how's a Freshman HS kid suppoused to pay for it NEW? At the time, tho I didn't know what indie was, so that feeling is mostly in retrospect.

The first indie album I bought where I felt VASTLY superior to everyone else and knew why was Nobody's Cool by Lotion. Not on a major label, not a radio band, not on classic-oldies-top-40. No one knew who they were, and no one really knows now. But the album was (and still is) spectacular.

Sandinista - The Clash. Syd Scarborough's in Hull (anyone know if it's still there), January 1981. Loved all 36 tracks and still love about 34 of 'em 20 years on. One ambitious mutha of a record.

In 1986 or so I bought this double-vinyl set of underground Russian bands that a small American label had put out. I still have it around somewhere. So I guess that counts.

The Replacements Pleased To Meet Me in 1987. And The Smiths Louder Than Bombs, also purchased that year, I think. They were both on Sire, I believe, but they felt very "inside" to me.

A Creation Records sampler that I can't remember the name of . Had the Jasmine Minks, Pastels, the Loft, Weather Prophets etc. etc. I couldn't imagine it not going to number one.

soundgarden, 'ultramega ok,' purchased sometime in november of 1990. i remember it was november because my mother was decorating for christmas when i dragged my father to tower records.

i also purchased jellyfish's 'bellybutton' on that day.

Sonic Youth: Daydream Nation, which struck my Dirty-loving, Nirvana- worshipping ears as boring as fuck, setting the stage for most of my future responses to indie.

Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain

One of Beechwoods "Indie Top 20" double elpee compils!!! Can't get more "indie" than that!!!!

Actually, looking back on it, it was quite decent selection- it had some quoite decent tracks on it from the Sugarcubes, Fatima Mansions, Spacemen 3, Thee Hypnotics, and Dub Sex!!!! And also a really ace "dance" theme on side 2, with some "ambient" stuff from a pre- "Move Any Mountain" Shamen, and a really "kickin'" Youth remix of some old Alien Sex Fiend tune!!!!

In fact, it was probably too good a start!!!! My next purchase was of some record by McCarthy!!!!

I'll never make that mistake again!!!!

Old Fart!!!!!

I supposed I crossed the line into 'music press darlings with low record sales' (if that's a working definition of 'indie' by late 80s standards) with either "House Tornado" or "Blue Bell Knoll" sometime in the autumn of '88. I bought "Strangeways" not long after it came out, and several other Smiths records shortly afterwards (energized by the split, the South Bank Show special and a grant cheque), but I regarded them as a chart act, much like the Bunnymen, The Cure or New Order. I'd bought weirder stuff by '87 anyway (though not independent guitar-pop), so I didn't think I was joining some esoteric club.

The post-punk/new wave period was covered by my brother's record collection at the time, and in the early 80s I'd tape the Associates and China Crisis off the chart rundown, but not listen to Peel. I think my first chunk of supplementary benefit went on Suzanne Vega, Laurie Anderson and Joni Mitchell LPs.

So, 4AD it is then. What a surprise.

Ooh hang on - I think it was Danielle Dax's "Pop-Eyes" instead. Bugger.

God, this is a bit scary. I refer the honourable gentleman to the answers my colleagues gave some moments ago. Also spurred on by the South Bank Show special (and then borrowing Strangeways from the library) I began my Smiths buying frenzy sometime late in 1987. If they don't count as indie then I think my next one was, yup, the House of Love's first LP. This is all reminding me of the blurred lines around tales of virginity loss. I mean the first ever record I bought was Kraftwerk's 'The Model' b/w 'Computer Love' at the age of . Maybe that counts as indie. I'm not sure what statement the eight-year old Nick felt he was making with that purchase. I think it was something like 'Computers! Cool!!'

N. x

God, this is a bit scary. I refer the honourable gentleman to the answers my colleagues gave some moments ago. Also spurred on by the South Bank Show special (and then borrowing Strangeways from the library) I began my Smiths buying frenzy sometime late in 1987. If they don't count as indie then I think my next one was, yup, the House of Love's first LP. This is all reminding me of the blurred lines around tales of virginity loss. I mean the first ever record I bought was Kraftwerk's 'The Model' b/w 'Computer Love'. Maybe that counts as indie. I'm not sure what statement the eight-year old Nick felt he was making with that purchase. I think it was something like 'Computers! Cool!!'

N. x

i'm surprised they haven't been mentioned yet: r.e.m. -- _eponymous_

Given that I hated to death all the british new wave/modern rock stuff of the late 80's I was a bit late on the indie wagon...

First "indie" record: NWA - Straight Outta Compton (first tape I bought that wasn't either metal or on the radio at all.)

First indie record: Nirvana - Bleach (first "punk" album I ever bought, based entirely on my borrowing it and Nevermind from someone after hearing SMTS and liking it better)

First Indie record: Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain

"Pearly Dew Drops Drop" Cocteau Twins.

Sorry, got a lot more than ten answers. Mine was the Trashcan Sinatra's "Cake" by the way, bought merely on a gushing NME recomendation. I must have liked it, though it sounds a bit meally mouthed to me now (probably started me liking dodgy "clever" lyrics though).

Anyway, follow up question posted....

eels-beautifal freak..

(yes I am young)

Ludo

The first 'indie' record I ever bought with the concept of 'indie' in mind was Blur's Parklife, 1994 (I think). Hey, it was a long time ago....:)

Pavement: Wowee Zowiee, and Sonic Youth: Experimental Jet Set Trash... both on the same day, used, at the Wherehouse.

How I got into Alternative music. (I never did like the term Indie) It was not one album, rather a process over 1985 and 1986.

I started listened to DJS such as John peel, Annie Nightingale request show, Dave Fanning from spring 1985, however as a 15 year old my purchasing power was limited, however I regularly taped tracks off the Peel show. Shreikback, Xmal Deutschland, Husker Du, Colourbox, The Fall, The Jesus and Mary Chain, That Petrol Emotion, New Order, The Woodentops, 1,000 Violins, Prefabsprout (yes Peel had them in session in 1985!), Cabaret Voltaire, The Cocteau Twins, Cassandra Complex, The Three Johns, Einsturzende Neubaten, Test Department, The Calendar Crowd, all the obscure electro stuff I liked etc.

I also was into crossover chart stuff in 85, from the likes The Waterboys, Kate Bush, The Cure, Talking Heads, The Smiths, China Crisis, Lloyd Cole & the Commotions, Scritti Politti, Propaganda, Killing Joke - Love Like Blood, BAD, and The Cult She Sells Sanctuary etc.

The Tube and Max headroom show (channel 4), and Whistle Test (BBC 2) were also part of my listening experiences. Along with Dave Fanning RTE 2 Ireland, living in the western part of Britain I could pick this up in FM.

By around june 1985 i started buying a few copies of MM/ Sounds and NME.

My first Peel festive 50 listening experience was December 85.

It was only from as a sixteen year old that I started buying albums on a regular basis. From June 1986 after my O Levels, just after my 16 birthday I started buying Sounds and Melody Maker every week, but rarely NME - a few copies now and again. Trying to keep update with the new artists, and developing an understanding of the key bands of the past, particularly from 1977 onwards, i.e 1977 - 1985.

One of the first alternative rock albums (I never liked the term Indie, which seemed to be used with increasing regularilty in 86, due the C86/shambling scene and the likes of Janice Long on BBC Radio)I bought was in May 86 by Cactus World News, Urban Beaches - a suberb album, that injected melodic power with brilliant guitar sounds. The last track on side one of the tape is state of emergency, this built up into a buzzing feedback drenched guitars, a track that I turned by to the max, particularly the last dying seconds of the track - you will know why if you have experienced it.

Around about the same time, The Chart Show (on ITV), featured an indie i.e independent released singles top 10 section and for about 8 weeks The Mission - Serphents Kiss was something that I was particularly keen on as a young 16 year old.

Not the first, but certainly an album that a big impact on me, a sense of real superiority above my peers, was the debut album from Throwing Muses, in late August 86, an album that still today I rate as one of the best dynamic and intoxicating albums of alltime. An album that twisted and turned and was soaked in emotional cathartic atmosphere. I cannot understand why this album is never mentioned in best of alltime lists.

The first I heard of Throwing Muses was on Peel show, the album also had uniformity of excellent reviews in all 3 of the weekly music press titles Sounds/ MM and NME.

This was about the same time when Simon Reynolds, David Stubbs, Paul Oldfield etc started turning the MM towards the leftfield, creative margins - leading and setting the music agenda, that is so lacking in todays music press, which is merely reflecting and reinforcing the status qou i.e NME.

Some of the alternative albums I bought in 86 were from artists such as The Woodentops, It's Immaterial, The The, Mantronix, Husker Du, The Mission, Cactus World News, Gene Loves Jezebel, The Bolshoi, Blue in Heaven, The Cocteau Twins, Killing Joke, Pete Shelley, The Fountainhead, New Order, PIL, Peter Murphy and The Chameleons.

In the late spring of 2001, I will have been listening to a diverse range of alternative music for over 16 years.

DJ Martian http://djmartian.blogspot.com

It must have been Public Enemy's "It takes a nation of millions..." or Sonic Youth's "Daydream Nation" around 1988, a welcome change after a steady diet of Slayer/Metallica/Megadeth/Anthrax. In one fast move i was transformed into the coolest indie-boy around ;)

We know, Martian. We know. We knnnooooowwwww ...

Of course listening to Dave Fanning on FM was more than you could do in the mid-80s for any daily Radio 1 show *except for* Peel. Was this a reason why you listened?

Oh, and mine was, as already mentioned, "The Great Escape" by Blur (though I'd had tapes from others some time before that). Clearly I have travelled a long way over the last five years and four months ...

nov 15, 1993 : Smiths "best of..." vol.1 . A week later I bought the vol. 2 and then I was hooked for ever...

my first introductory album buy was Nevermind; and i felt quite brash and scared at the same time revealing that to my friends at the age of 12. Then at 15, I made my first "indie" buy proper - a best-of Velvets tape. That was the end and beginning. It's led me to do many stupid things since.

Either Meat is Murder or Lowlife in 1985 when I was 13. What's the follow up question?

i'm not shure which i bought first but it would be one of these

this nations saving grace- the fall a bauhaus singles album, the double one evol- sonic youth ledzepplin IV- i'm joking, ive never owned this record i never owned a "the cult" record....yes i did (mtv victim) prayers on fire- the birthday party wait it may have been bad brains "rock for light" if that counts as "indie" and not just "punk" or whatever

as far as feeling superior i only recollect having an arguement with my arch nemesis that lived down the street about which was "heavier" or more "f*cked up" Bad Brains or Iron maiden/judas priest/ Dio or something like that(?) me and my friend, argueing the Bad brains case definately felt that guy was a complete idiot. though i felt that guy was an idiot prior to that arguement.

so it's hard to say

jason

Hmm. The first "indie" album that I actually purchased was probably the "Pretty In Pink" soundtrack (contains OMD, Suzanne Vega, Belouis Some, New Order, The Smiths, Psychdelic Furs, INXS), although I didn't know it was indie at the time. Actually, the only reason I got it was because I'd heard that the music from John Hughes movies was really good. Little did I know that it would change my world...

The first albums I bought which were self- consciously "indie" (for the US, at least) were probably part of a Columbia House deal, where in one fell swoop I got Guadalcanal Diary's _Flip Flop_, The Feelies' _It's Only Life_, The Pixies' _Doolittle_, Depeche Mode's _101_, and Martin L. Gore's _Counterfeit EP_. I think I bought _Japanese Whispers_ around this time, too. And Shriekback's _Oil And Gold_. Man, I got a lot of music all at once for a kid with no money...