My first experience with albums was my Dad's GTO, which had a turntable in the glove compartment. lol Terrible idea.
For my first album that I bought with my own money, I believe it was Boston, and then Seger Live Bullet in the 70's shortly after that. Right around that time it seemed that 8-Tracks were becoming more popular but albums still remained my preferred medium because they didn't skip tracks in the middle of the tunes. I had every Black Sabbath album up to Mob Rules, quite a few Rush albums, and lots of random ones. For Rush, even though I'd heard 2112 a few years earlier, I borrowed 'Archives' from a friend and I don't think they ever got it back. I grabbed up all of their albums up to their latest after that. My brother was a huge BÖC fan and would play Agents of Fortune or Mirrors everyday before school. We grew up listening to all the K-Tel pop tunes and some real out-there stuff like Spike Jones and some rare gems like
Jan and Dean Meet Batman.
Then we got a Turn Table/8-Track/AM-FM Tuner combo unit that would also record to blank 8-Tracks from any of the sources. That was my introduction to mix-tapes, but that's also when I discovered Iron Maiden. I first saw a Killers 8-Track and the cover instantly drew me in, since I was drawing skulls and dragons around that time. I bought it and was blown away and off to the races. I think my brother still has that contraption too, but I doubt it works. I tore that thing apart many times trying to connect more speakers and just messing around with the electronics. Thats also the same 8-Track player I tried shoving my guitar into. Drugs are bad, nkay.