We called them ghetto blasters in 4th grade, which is probably when I got mine. We would all strut around blasting Devo’s Oh, No! It’s Devo. Because we were so urban.
Kid’s wearing a classic Izod design. And my God, the couch.
(Image via new2vulcan/eBay)
2 Warps to Neptune 
Ghetto blasters it was, and ghetto blasters it’ll always be for us. Those things are getting harder and harder to find, and the people that still have survivors typically charge $$$ for ’em. So awesome.
My cousin had a monster one we lugged around for our breakdancing battles. It took like a dozen D cells. LoL
Forgot about all those D batteries. What a pain in the ass. The blaster was the first step to music independence, though. Taping stuff off the radio late at night in your room. Buying tapes. I got my record player a few years later, and that was a life changer.
I never had a giant boom box, just a little Toshiba but I sill have it and the damn thing works great.