Boombox Nation 83 Postcard

Whereas today we see everyone enjoying their own private world of music on iPods and other mp3 players, the 1980s saw a quite different approach. In a brash and arrogant zeitgeist, it was the done thing to impose your personality on your surroundings, to the extent where walking down the street carrying a huge stereo system that was belting out your favourite tunes was not unusual behaviour. For the most part, though, these boomboxes, also called ghetto blasters, were the portable music solution for teenage bedrooms and parties. The design took advantage of the cassette tape format, which meant that a stereo system no longer needed to have a turntable to play vinyl records, and so could be designed in a portable form, with integrated speakers and often two cassette decks to allow a sort of primitive DJing.