I’m the leader of the show, keepin’ you on the go
But I know I can’t live without my radio
Back in the 80s, when I was just a small boy, I was fascinated by almost all electronics, and especially ghetto blasters. Imagine a stereo, that you could bring along on the beach, to school or to you friend’s house. I was especially fascinated by dancing LED-lights but also the buttons and sliders. Some ghetto blasters even had a double cassette deck – That was witchcraft!
First contact
My first real ghetto blaster was a small, JVC PC 30, in silver and with one cassette deck a 5 band equalizer and detachable speakers. I remember that the speaker-units themselves were square. Quite unusual back then.
I loved that radio. I almost had it with me everywhere, in the summertime. I remember having it on the handlebar on my bike, when me and my good friend Dennis, took a trip to “down town” Herlev. And, even loaded with batteries the PC 30 still was manageable to carry around.
Later, I got a really big ghetto blaster – a black no-name – that I bought from a guy at work. It had a double cassette deck, a compact disc player and also detachable speakers with a neat light-feature, that flashed to the beat of the sound. This monster was almost impossible to carry around, due to all the batteries is could carry.
The real deal
My good friend and classmate in the 80’s, Paul, had the Philips D8534. This was the first time I saw, what I would call, a real “ghetto blaster“. It had a decent size, great speakers and 3 band equalizer a mono/stereo and a left/right slider. What more could you want?
And it looked real cool too.
Later
As I grew older, smaller and fancier music system was invented – like the Walkman, DiscMan, MiniDisc and …
With the Walkman, you could bring your music and not have to drag a big ass ghetto blaster along. At the same time, conceal yourself, in your own little world with your own music and not bother your surroundings, with your music – or noise …
And to quote LL Cool J – ‘I can’t live without My Radio’ – and neither can’t I.