In the days leading up to this year's Record Store Day on April 19, the OpenAir hosts will share the story of their first-ever record purchases, however memorable or misguided they may have been. Last up is late morning host Alisha Sweeney.
We want to know what your first record was, too! Be sure to enter the Record Store Day contest on our Facebook page by telling us your first ever record purchase (vinyl, CD, digital or whatever), and you could win a brand new record player and a collection of vinyl records.
I chose a 12" vinyl record that was a companion to some children's storybook, but I've never been able to remember what it was. I can just see a Strawberry Shortcake-esque character sitting on a rose and I remember her giving me a few dollars to take it up to the counter and pay by myself. We moved a lot as a kid so I'm sure it got lost in one of the moves.
Later on in grade school, I made money working for my grandparents and I also started babysitting when I was really young too. By that time, cassette tapes had outsold vinyl and I remember some of the first tapes I purchased ranged from New Kids on the Block to Wilson Phillips to De La Soul and Paula Abdul. I coveted them equally. I should have bought those tapes as compact discs but that's what I could afford and I would listen to them religiously in my room before bedtime every night on my mini boombox which was on the shelf of my waterbed.
Of all these purchases, I consider De La Soul's 1989 classic debut "3 Feet High and Rising" the best my prepubescent self ever made because, as the youngest of four kids, it was the freshest album any of us owned and it belonged to Me, Myself and I! That meant if my siblings wanted to listen to it, they would actually have to be nice to me so that we could listen to it together and dance on the waterbed to "The Magic Number," giggle about who's got dandruff in "Can U Keep A Secret?," and do our best lip syncing to "Me, Myself and I."
