[raketenjagdpanzer]

I heartily recommend you guys comb through "Techmoan", a youtube channel. He goes through a great many obscure audio formats, sometimes fixes playback decks etc.

For example, it was through him that I learned in the 1950s there was a flexible audio format, that, while it appeared to be a tape cartridge, it had grooves on it, and played like a record, with a stylus.

That's just one of the amazing facts I learned from his channel.

But the point of it is, where there's a will to record audio, there's a way. Magnetic tape playback and recording goes all the way back to the early 1900s, and gramophone and wax cylinder recording recordings to the late 1800s.

The audio quality of these early formats is obviously poor, but still, when the choice is some lifting of spirits or none, you'll surely see people taking "some".

Plus, earlier "boom boxes" relied less on fragile electronics and more on robust components. Someone with moderate hobbyist skills could get a reel-to-reel playback working again. Or even car speakers, hooked up to a car radio, which may have been shielded by the metal body of the car, from EMP damage. Some sort of ad hoc battery system (salvaged from a car, for example) and a little bit of determination and there's your music!