Favourite albums from your first year in university.

Great idea for a topic. Here goes.. from the 88/89 academic year. All these are still v much regular listens. Never tire of them

Tanita Tikarum, Ancient Heart

Tracy Chapman's debut

Blue Nile, Hats

Neville Brothers, Yellow Moon

If I could sneak a fifth album into the list, Joe Jackson, Blaze of Glory

My first year at Uni was September 1982 to June 1983. The big album for me was P,C&L by New Order (I saw them live about 15 times that year as well), which came out in May '83.

But I also liked Hex Enduction Hour by The Fall a great deal.

What about everyone else? Groups popular at London Uni at that time included (rather inevitably) U2, Simple Minds and the Bunnymen, but everyone from Culture Club, Wham! and Duran Duran to Tom Waits, Blancmange and Funboy 3 were also faves with the student population. The Floyd's The Final Cut was an album everyone seemed to buy in March/April '83 though lots of people seemed disappointed with it, at least initially.

But the biggest album that year was something rather unusual. In December '82 Cherry Red Records put out a cheapo (99p) compilation callled Pillows & Prayers that everyone seemed to buy, and then play endlessly.  It featured an eclectic (if ocasionally twee) selection of music from the likes of EBTG, Marine Girls, Eyeless In Gaza, Felt, Passage, Kevin Coyne, Monochrome Set, Atilla the Stockbroker, etc

The computer science stiffs (who always seemed to be the ones with the hi-fis and who are probably the rich ones these days) were into utter rubbish like Dire Straits, the Alan Parsons Project or dreadful folk music, but they were by and large social outcasts. 

In no particluar order:

ABC - Lexicon of Love

Yazoo - Upstairs at Eric’s 

The Clash - Combat Rock

… and perhaps most heard (if not played at home)

My favourite albums from my freshers year at uni, 1988/89:

Pixies - Doolittle.

R.E.M. - Green.

Throwing Muses - Hunkpapa. 

The Smiths were very popular when I was a student, but I never got into them.

As I was a “mature” student my tastes changed completely. I was more into heavy and prog rock before university.

Richard Dane posted:

Mick Jagger - She's The Boss

A prevailing understanding from being educated.

I was running a Dunlop Systemdek IIX/Linn LVX/Arcam P77MG/Naim Nait I/Mordaunt Short MS30 system at Birmingham University in 1988/89 my first year.  It was a great system and I adored the way the Nait could boogie.  The album that most stands out for me that year was Del Amitri "Waking Hours".  I adored the incredible songwriting and lyrical mastery of Justin Currie and it was a great album to accompany all those little love affairs that faltered or burned themselves out in a matter of weeks over a tin of McEwans Export or a late night scotch.  I'm still a huge Del Amitri fan and in fact only this month saw them perform at Birmingham Symphony Hall - just a great band.

Another album that got a lot of airplay were Enya's "Watermark" which according to an old girlfriend I dated that year (a brilliant classical pianist student at the Conservatoire) was the soundtrack to our lovemaking on many occasions.  Evidently I was the slow and sensual type even back then!!  Happily we recently established contact and met last December for the first time in 28 years, sadly I discovered she is terminally ill which made our reconnection even more poignant.  She was 19, I was 20 and both of us had our whole lives stretching before us full of untapped potential.  Interestingly I saw a wonderful movie written by Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian a couple of years back called "God help the girl".  Aside from a wonderful soundtrack it took me back to those student times in my life and indeed Emily Browning's character in the film strongly reminded me of my ex.  It's a brilliant film well worth seeing if you want to relive some of that adolescent angst, music, romance and navel gazing! 

God help the girl trailer

I also recall buying the Pink Floyd live "Delicate sound of thunder" on vinyl the day it came out and blasting that out as loud as the Nait would go without clipping  - and in halls that was pretty darned inconsiderate!

Maybe it's wistful middle age or just the fact that 50 is now approaching with alarming speed, but I have found myself wanting to reflect on that incredible time of my life more and more.  I lived for music, so much was new, passions burned bright, I had more free downtime than I have now to savour the joys of life and I was surrounded by a much larger circle of readily available close friends so an epic night out or piss up was so much easier to arrange.  They're formative days and you don't realise how powerfully they will resonate down the years or how much you will cherish memories of those times.

An interesting thread I couldn't resist posting in - thanks.

Jon  

I bought this album on my first weekend, right after my parents left.  It was on Shelter Records as I recall.  I still have it on vinyl and it still sounds great.   I met his ex-wife in New Orleans a couple of years later.   She was working for the newspaper and was a highlight in her own right.  Have since seen him in Little Rock, a few years back.  Check it out if you can find it.   Dating myself I know.