Your first time

[ResIpsa]

Great question!

1. Seeing Devo perform "Uncontrollable Urge" and "Jocko Homo" on SNL. It was like a light switch went off in my young pre-teen mind seeing those spuds jerking around in their yellow jumpsuits. My dad laughed at 'em and that sealed the deal for me. I went out and bought "Freedom Of Choice" (my first ever album purchase) at JC Penneys very soon after. Good times.

2. Hearing "Rock Lobster" played for the first time on KMET, a long defunct hard-rock radio station in Los Angeles. The DJ introduced the song by saying someting like, "here is something really different." No shit! I bopped my head to the song with a smile on my face the whole time. I immediately stopped listening to Pink Floyd etc.

3. Watching the old music videos that would play really late at night, (remember Don Kirshner's Rock Concert? LOL!) I remember XTC's "Life Begins At The Hop" for some reason. Those were good times, staying up late during the summers, hacking with my Commie 64, watching the old new-wave videos and just basically burning time.

[elektrikblu]

At Club Hurrah in NYC
Warm Leatherette - The Normal
Wow!

elektrikblu
"Don't look at the carpet. I threw something awful on it!"

[red x red]

Like others here before, I had to have Gary Numan's "Cars" which I bought on 45.

[LovePlusOne]

[quote][i]Originally posted by ResIpsa[/i]
<br>Great question!

2. Hearing "Rock Lobster" played for the first time on KMET, a long defunct hard-rock radio station in Los Angeles. The DJ introduced the song by saying someting like, "here is something really different." No shit! I bopped my head to the song with a smile on my face the whole time. I immediately stopped listening to Pink Floyd etc.


[/quote]

Ha ha the Mighty MET actually played "Rock Lobster"!!! Classic.

[ResIpsa]

Ya, KMET playing Rock Lobster was a hoot! [:D] Up to then I had been content to suck down the Pink Floyd, the Tom Petty etc etc. I remember the DJ spending like 30 seconds or so settting up Rock Lobster, along the lines of "This is a brand new song that so and so has been raving about but it IS different so be careful..." I don't think I ever heard it played on KMET again. No matter, I switched over to KROQ soon after.

[ResIpsa]

[quote][i]Originally posted by red x red[/i]
<br>Like others here before, I had to have Gary Numan's "Cars" which I bought on 45.


[/quote]

I remember vividly the first time I heard Cars. I was playing hooky from junior high school with a young lady. We were on the bus going to the beach when the song came on someone's boombox. I was in love! (with the song, not the girl [;)]) Still remains my favorite song from the 80s and Numan became an obsession for me (until Warriors anyway [;)])

Anyway, we got busted for skipping school. Apparently, the principal had seen us waiting at the bus stop as he drove into work that morning. LOL! Her parents forbade her from seeing me again.[:(]

[BHols]

For some reason it was Kids In America by Kim Wilde that really floated my boat.

[zill]

Already mentioned songs like "Whip It" by Devo and "I Got You" by Split Enz, but also "Turning Japanese" by the Vapours and "Drugs In My Pocket" by the Monks.

But for some reason I distinctly remember hearing "Making Plans For Nigel" by XTC and thinking it was the most brilliant piece of music I had ever heard at that point in my life.

[zalasta]

Mine was "Sweet Dreams (are made of this)" by Eurythmics.

I remember the momemt very clearly. I was watching MTV in my dad - i must have been 11 years old, this was 1983 - and the "Sweet Dreams" video came on. I was completely thunderstruck by it. After it was over, my dad looked at me and said "they have some weird people on this channel."

I went out and bought the 45 and eventually the album, which I played over and over and over again on my sister's little toy Fisher Price record player, as I didn't have my own stereo, and my parent's weren't keen on my listening to it in the living room.

That album launched me into a love of music that remains my greatest passion to this day. And I still think it's an amazing record. As many times as I've heard it, when the new Eurythmics reissues came out a few weeks back, it sounded so great that it felt like i was listening to it again for the first time.

[GlitteringPrize]

Mine was TV od by the normal, my brother was listening to a college radio station and heard it and we never forgot it, it was pre(New york) Wlir days, ahhh memories!!!!

[TheMunDial]

My gateway song was a-ha's "The Sun Always Shines On TV" in early 2OO3. The rest is history.

[ResIpsa]

[quote][i]Originally posted by TheMunDial[/i]
<br>My gateway song was a-ha's "The Sun Always Shines On TV" in early 2OO3. The rest is history.


[/quote]
LOL! Gateway song... I love it [:D]!

[bpdp3]

There was no 'one' song for me; you just couldn't hear this stuff on radio in my backwoods area. This was pre-mtv....

It all gets fuzzy now but I remember my first encounters being with the Police debut and the Clash "London Calling".

[DayGloJo]

I remember as if it were yesterday seeing Elvis Costello & the Attractions play on SNL. When I saw them I thought my head was going to explode. They looked and sounded so different from all the other bands around in the late 70s. After that night all my preconceptions about popular music got turned upside down. Soon after that I discovered Blondie, the Cars & the Police. And as they say the rest is history.

DayGloJo

[randy]

The Cars first lp was definatly the one. When it came out the cassette was permanently lodged in my cars cassette player and I went through 2 copies of the vinyl. I even had the red vinyl copy of Just What I Needed. Im always amazed at the number of people that feel Candy O is a superior lp. (Although in my experiance, the folks that seem to prefer Candy O are usually the folks that were introduced to the Cars by Lets Go )