Yep, exactly, all those BBXs and G-blasters terms came only retrospectively, years after those vanished in general use, back in 70s -80s -early 90s those were only "magnitofon's" or "magnitola's" (with radio). At least among my fellas.
I wanted to reply to another post that quoted the Star Trek bus episode, but I cannot find it: search on this forum sucks. So, I am posting it here. Regarding the Star Trek scene, user Samurai Momo on YouTube commented, "Inspired by an actual incident. Leonard Nimoy was on a bus or a subway train and he and other passengers had to endure some punk blasting music on a boom box. He said he wanted to nerve pinch him into oblivion. Later he used the incident to create this scene and got his revenge though the hand of Mr. Spock. True story: Pg 198 in the book "Star Trek Movie Memories" by William Shatner." I went to the Internet Archive, borrowed the book and found this on page 250 (the words on page 250 and half of the page 251 are Nicholas Meyer's): So, it was a scene from another movie, that Meyer re-wrote for Star Trek. The character was a Chinese boy. Meyer says that he "still wanted to trash rock music'. Hmm. The similar story attributed to Nimoy does not mention a bus or subway and there were no other passengers. Neither the skin color nor the type of music played by the "young man with a gigantic boom box" is specified. I wonder whether white punk rockers actually played loud music on their boomboxes on mass transit in the U.S. in late 1970s - early 1980s. And here is an article in SF Chronicle (if it does not show the text, reload the page and stop loading before the paywall script loads).
i can tell you i took my large ghettoblaster on a bus full of us kids a few times here in the uk, my dc33l went everywhere with me lol
Are you suggesting that non-whites were more likely to play boomboxes on mass transit? I suppose that's possible on a per capita basis. But since whites are still the biggest racial group in the vast majority of Western cities, I think we'd be more likely to encounter a white kid doing it. I recall white kids blasting heavy metal on buses during the early 80s. Stuff like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Black Sabbath were viewed as the way for white kids to prove how macho they were. If they caught you listening to "glam metal" like Def Leppard or Ratt, they would call you a "fag" because those bands supposedly weren't "real" metal. And if you listened to pop like Madonna or INXS or Wham, oh boy, you were a called a "double fag". And if you listened to rap you were accused of "pretending to be black" And the older white kids in college would look down on ALL the new stuff, because according to them it could NEVER stack up to the GREATEST band ever, Pink Floyd
The only time I did anything like that was when one of my friends, who was a massive Wham fan decided it would be super cool if we walked up and down outside the Tropicana Swimming Pool on Weston Super Mare seafront, boombox on shoulder, blasting Wham's "Club Tropicana" at full volume. It is a shame that I don't have a photo of that occasion. p.s. Funnily I have never known anyone who was into the bands you mention. I have known a teenager who was well into Kiss and two sisters who were mad on Def Leppard. Personally I and quite a few friends, even in the 1970s, thought Guitars were old hat and Synthesizers (in the hands of people like Vangelis) were amazing.
I tried to phrase it so that no one would accuse me of suggesting anything like this. What if I listened to Disco or Joni Mitchell or Kate Bush or Taylor Dayne or Beethoven? Well, the latter is purely hypothetical Were punk rock / metal and rap the only two styles that were considered ok to play loud, especially in public transit? (<- a real question).
They played Taylor Dayne on the radio the other morning so I had to turn the car radio up quite a bit.
Yeah Wham was one of the so-called "fag bands". I bet the same kids who use to say things like that, will now claim they've always believed George Michael was a genius
Well disco had died off by the early 80s in the US, so people would question you if you blasted it publicly. As for Beethoven, well you really need something that sounds better than a boombox to enjoy it lol
I can remember my friend, who back in the day copied everything George did fashion wise, commenting "Wouldn't it be amazing if you looked like George Michael, so you could go to the club and go "Nah" to all the girls trying to chat you up. After the infamous toilet incident I actually got a chance to ask my friend, if he still liked him. His answer "not quite as much as I used to". Sometime later I actually got to see George in concert (my girlfriends choice). The secretary at work said that she had spent her entire teenage years dreaming that one day she would marry George .
I never cared much for Wham!, although they had several nice songs. I do like George Michael a lot and everything he made after... let me check with his discography... well, pretty much everything. I don't care much for his songs influenced by Prince just like I never cared about Prince. I was shocked when he died... George Michael, not Prince. When Older came out I was listening to it day in and day out. I admired him for admitting the silly L.A. toilet incident and for mocking the police officer. For Shoot the Dog too. Whenever they play his stuff on the radio in the U.S. they usually play earlier happier stuff, but I prefer his later songs, they are deeper, more thoughtful, more somber, and are impeccably produced - he produced his own songs, he was a perfectionist. Oh, and the fact that only he and Lisa Stansfield could do justice to Freddie's songs tells enough.
If I didn't see this actual performance I saw one the same week Madonna was in the audience so he had to put on a good show.
