The History of the Boombox

The first boombox was created in the Netherlands in 1966. The technology quickly became popular in Europe, but it wasn’t until Japanese manufacturers began mass-producing boomboxes in the 1970s and 1980s that they took off in the United Sates. They were featured in many music videos that aired on MTV as well as in many movies throughout the ’80s. (The image of a boombox being carried over someone’s shoulder is now a cultural touchpoint.) They also played an important role in youth culture throughout the decade, especially in urban spaces. Additionally, boomboxes played a key role in the development of hip-hop culture both because of their portability and their ability to pump out heavy bass sounds, which have long been a key part of hip-hop music and related phenomena, such as breakdancing. Classic boomboxes included two large speakers on either side of a centrally located radio and a cassette player. Designed to be loud, boomboxes allowed listeners to gather together and bond over their preferred music — as well as force those around them to listen to it! Some boomboxes had advanced features like 2-way or even 3-way speakers and higher-end models often allowed for adjustments to the bass, mid, and treble. Because most boomboxes included AM and FM radio as well as a tape deck, listeners could record hits onto their own cassette tapes. This novel capability led to the birth of the mixtape, a tape of curated recordings often given to friends, romantic partners, or simply used to create unique soundtracks at parties. (Interestingly, the phenomenon was later repeated with CDs and then replicated again in the form of curated playlists as the digital age took hold.) As time went on, boomboxes were equipped with CD players; MP3 capabilities were added to some models in the 1990s. But the arrival of personal music players in the late 1980s contributed to the slow, eventual decline of boomboxes as people began to listen to their music on these smaller devices using headphones rather than through loud, bulky, and often quite heavy boomboxes. Yet the culture of the boombox has not disappeared completely — today, Bluetooth speakers are often used to share digital music among groups of friends or family members, continuing the legacy of the boombox in the digital age.