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Lyle Owerko documents the beautiful, unabashedly-'80s designs of boomboxes

By Rain Noe - October 11, 2010

in Object Culture

Artist Lyle Owerko's "The Boombox Project" documents different examples of the "gargantuan conglomerations of electronics, lights and chrome-plated gadgetry" that was synonymous with urban street sounds in the '80s. Starting in the mid-'90s Owerko collected some 42 prime examples of the devices, and the best of the best are currently on display at Manhattan's Clic Gallery. (For those of you far from Gotham, Amazon has just released the accompanying book, and Owerko's even got a line of corresponding Gelaskins.)

In the following video Owerko discusses his collection with the eye of a connoisseur--"It was always a turn-on to see [the soft-touch cassette doors] slowly open because that connotated quality and craftsmanship"--and hip hop legend Fab Five Freddy explains the role of the boombox in distributing street music in a pre-iPod era.

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slippyfish

14 years ago

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awesome. great documentation. I miss my old JVC. let's all pour one out for our dead homie boomboxes (and buying D-cells by the eight-pack).
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Mike Nelson Pedde

14 years ago

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Somewhere in a box I still have a JVC PC-5, 1981 vintage! It was a boombox, but it was also a set of components that could be dismantled and set up side by side.

Mike.
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ian

14 years ago

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great to see this is documented
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