It is a figure of small history, but one, which has had a resurgence of popularity within the eBay and thrift store community. One look online at a 1980s boom box going for $300 and you wonder, what does this object hold that is so desirable despite its obvious outdated technology? I myself am obsessed with the boom box. I have my own collection of them. I have three that do not fully function. One has a cassette player that doesn’t work that is attached to my record turntable to serve as a sort of speaker system/recording device. Another has a working cassette deck with a very defunct volume control. A third one actually has a miniature television screen next to the cassette deck (non-functioning of course, except for a thin white line that flickers off and on).

Nostalgia is at epidemic proportions in this time of mass production and super-information. So why are we so driven to use items from, dress like and listen to music from another time period? Why do people engage in this time travel? Maybe our desire for the past stems from the assumption that things were simpler back then. Or maybe we are discontented with the state of the Modern world and all we’ve made out of its resources. The question seems to be not just one of desire, but of economics. I, myself, am guilty of nostalgia and my obsession stems from the thrill of the bargain hunt—searching for and acquiring items of desire for the cheapest prices. I am not satisfied by buying an item online, I would rather find it myself abandoned by a previous owner and make it new again by giving it new use. Maybe that is the job of the artist, to shift the empty feeling of nostalgia and make it into something productive.

When I think of the economics of the boom box, I feel a bit cheated. Originally, these cheap, plastic items were mass produced and sold for the same hefty price as an entire sound system! We all know the economics of electronics are driven by the endless cycle of supply and demand. If it’s made of poor quality it will break faster and the consumer will have to buy a new one. They are made and sold cheaply so that people from all economic backgrounds will be able to constantly spend more money on defunct electronics in this endless, dirty system.

One thing that has come to my mind is the convenience of this wonderfully portable sound machine. It makes perfect sense why one would want a thing that could be carried around to make noise. Usually, when you see anyone with a boom box, it is a loud guy on the bus with some gangsta rap, or some crusty punk rocker with screamy hardcore music, or a homeless guy sitting on the corner crying and singing wholeheartedly along with the local classic rock station. The boom box in these cases becomes a mode of communication—although it leaves little room for personal affect on the part of the boom box owner. This makes me wonder then what happened to the break-dancers—the b-girls and b-boys, the guys and ladies in the neighborhoods hanging out on the front porch with their sound machines? There was a glory attached to the early days of the boom box. The break dancers took what was given to them and turned it into action. Maybe this is the root of the nostalgia for this product, the knowledge that the first uses of the boom box were so productive, fun and of course stylish.

I am sad to see this music-making device that once brought people together for the joy of dancing and music now stripped of its potential and turned back into a money-making scheme by the greedy manufacturers. When I think of what they sell as boom boxes today, I can see why people want for the ones of old. With their alienating space age aerodynamic plastic silver bodies, the square models with more knobs and buttons are more pleasing because they invite interaction. The new ones always look to me like toy models. Also, it is getting harder and harder to find boom boxes that still have tape decks in them, as analog media is phased out and digital media is phased in. Boom boxes were once a medium for interaction and are now merely nostalgic items. It seems to me that if we are going to dip into the past and bring things back, we should give them a function and a reason. Otherwise, we are just adding to the already dense and spiritless nature of “collector’s items”.

The boom box has a purpose to be fulfilled. We must squelch the insidious trend of the consumer/collector who pretends to be part of some counterculture by merely hoarding items of nostalgia! We should be making mass amounts of mixed tapes and recording our own original sounds and using these devices to put those songs out there. I have some friends who have already taken action by cruising the streets of San Francisco with their boom boxes filled with noise. I tend to prefer making mix tapes and distributing them to my friends. But either way, we should be sharing noise—nature sounds, whales, kittens, ambient noise, new music, classic music…whatever sounds make us happy. Why not fulfill the destiny of this object by once again giving it a use and a function beyond that of a consumer item? We have enough items that sit useless on our shelves.

Boom boxes were made to broadcast noise. We should use them as a conveyor for social action, creativity and change and not simply allow them to become another decoration fueled by our consumer nostalgia.

This article is inspired by and dedicated to Sarah Ball, Eric Jones, Riki Rivas, and Ivy Womick who are all bringing back the boom.