When you’re young, you don’t always have a good grasp on what constitutes good music; never mind what is cool and popular, or has street cred, or will still be cool in 15 years. You’re often influenced by your parents or older siblings, which is cool if your older brother listened to Smashing Pumpkins, but not if your parents had a deep seated love for The Backstreet Boys and Mariah Carey (Like my parents). Personally, I was not only heavily influenced by my older sister who introduced me to Blink 182 and Nirvana, but also by what was played on the Much Music we may or may not remember of the 90s, from Pop-Up Video, to The Countdown. When you would keep a blank VHS ready for when your favourite video came on and run to record it.

Before you start to establish your musical tastes, there are some embarrassing purchases that happen along the way. This is all part of the growing pains of life, and helps shape who you become and what music you inevitably listen to; so there’s no reason to be ashamed. That being said – it can be really entertaining to find out what someone’s first album was (which is why I usually include it as an interview question).

To share the embarrassment, I have asked my staff to divulge the squirm-inducing, the shocking and the great: their first albums.

1. Jessica Ruby – Editor-in-Chief

I’ll go first, cause I’m nice like that. Also, I’m still proud of mine.

First Album: Alanis Morrisette – Jagged Little Pill

This album was awesome, and kind of badass with the explicit language warning. I bought a lot more embarrassing ones after this like the Now & Then soundtrack, but I would still jam out to this if it were on.

2. Dave Stuckey – Contributor

First Album: Alanis Morrisette – Jagged Little Pill

I”m not kidding.. it was the same one. Clearly this is why we get along!

3. Sky Regina – Editor and Writer

My first album was a direct result of spending time with a crew of older cousins that lived in “the big city” of Toronto (I lived in Newmarket, so it seemed very glam to me).

First Album: Salt-N-Pepa – Very Necessary

I’ll always appreciate my mom for ignoring the “Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics” sticker and purchasing this CD for my 5th birthday. Way to go Mom – its because of your disregard for censorship that I can still rap the lyrics to “Shoop”, essentially a song about young, sexually-liberated women wanting to fuck hot men. My obsession with this CD resulted in a videotape from Wonderland of my brother and I lip-syncing “Whatta Man” to a fancy backdrop of green screen images. Needless to say, this album had a huge influence on my early childhood, and its still cool to this day.

4. Adam Kay – Writer

First Album: Sum 41 – All Killer No Filler

I remember being in Grade 6 and in my final year of primary school, preparing for the upcoming school air band concert, for which a group of us had decided to perform ”In Too Deep” by Sum 41- complete with matching choreography. I’m sure that there were many albums before this one but they were either NOW (that’s what I call music) bullshit or from my mum’s 80’s collection. I was given illegally burned copies of All Killer No Filler and Half Hour Of Power, complete with badly printed cover art, by a friend in my class in order to help with my practice sessions for the upcoming ”gig”. I remember 11 year old me playing and replaying these albums while on my PlayStation and I’m sure that’s why they’ve had such a lasting impression.

5. Sal Farooqui – Writer

First Album: Tame Impala – Innerspeaker

The first album I ever bought was Tame Impala’s awesome psych rock debut Innerspeaker on vinyl, back when I was in high school. It was my first record, my first time walking through Queen West, and my first time going to a concert: Tame Impala at Kool Haus, when that place was still a thing. I managed to meet Kevin Parker after the show and got that sucker signed. It’s still my favourite album to date, and one of the first albums that really started to get me into music in general. Every time I pick up that record for a spin, it brings back the good memories of more firsts than just the record.

At 5 years old, I had no income to actually buy music (a statement that remains the same at 22), but I remember my dad taking me to Sunrise Records to buy my first album Spice World. Most of my childhood memories revolve around this CD, as I soon began draining my parents’ wallets for Spice Girls Barbies, dress up kits, pencils, books, stickers and Chupa Chups. My obsession got so bad that by the time I entered Kindergarten, Posh Spice was my imaginary friend— we played together at recess and sat together during story time and…I’m pretty certain I used to talk to her while I coloured too. Still one of my fav albums of ALL TIME, current pop music can’t even touch the Spice Girls’ body of work—and I will fight you on that any day, any time, any place. I’ll wear my Sporty Spice sweat bands and a Union Jack flag as a cape (and no other clothes) and I will see you in the ring. And if anyone’s wondering, yes Victoria Beckham still sits beside me as I work. She edited this blurb herself while sitting on my lap.