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The Boomin' System From June 2000 The first song I ever heard from the Miami Bass style was back in 1988 with L'Trimm's "The Cars with the Boom." The chorus went (as sung by 18-year-old rappers Tigra and Bunny D.), "We like the cars, the cars that go boom." The boom was courtesy of the Roland TR-808 drum machine. By today's standards, it's a fairly primitive device, but it achieved cult status and was very influential in hip-hop. Thanks to their long wavelengths, those bass drum notes have great power. You can appreciate their full effect outside of a dance club, thanks to a phenomenon that also started in the Eighties: Boom Cars. Now every city in America is filled with them. As you sit in traffic, surrounded by the noise of traffic -- possibly your own radio is on -- you suddenly hear a noise that sounds like this: Thmm, thmm, thmm. Thmm, thmm, thmm. You turn down the radio and crack your window open. From the Jeep in front of you, a sound issues more clearly: "I pull my THMM THMM THMM with the honeys on THMM THMM THMM…" The drum beats sound like they're in Sensurround. We're talkin' maybe 150 decibels. They shake the ground and rattle your spine. Here's a nice profile of the Boom Car culture [link no longer relevant]. Sample quote: "It's not uncommon to hitch more than 1,000 watts of power to a half-dozen big speakers stuffed in a trunk at a cost of $2,000 to $3,000 - often more than the car is worth." Why? Perhaps it's a form of aggression against the passing world. Maybe it's a form of macho one-upsmanship, boys with their toys. It might be a need to feel the music, not just hear it. Here's one person's analysis, "The Motives of Boom Car Boys", which includes lots of nice details about the kinds of advertising used to sell these systems; not surprisingly, they suggest that a big booming sound system will make you powerful and attractive to women. Just like every other product sold to men. They're considered a menace, a plague, a blight on the landscape. If the Boom Boxes of the Eighties were bad, the Boom Cars of the Nineties were ten times worse. (One just drove by my house, thmm thmm thmm...) They are certainly a form of intrusion, but I feel they are also a warning sign. They label a certain segment of the population. One that's going to go deaf before 30. |