In a recent campaign of TTRPG City of Mist, I played a world-weary lounge singer increasingly finding the watery despair captured in the poem Lorelei was sending unwelcome ripples through her life. Perhaps needless to say, the idea of a songstress who harbours a voice with devastating power is a creative idea I find extremely compelling. So when I caught wind of a song with the power to crash laptops, I knew I had to dive deeper.
It sounds like an urban legend but for years vendors of certain laptop models would quake in fear over a particular melody: Rhythm Nation by Janet Jackson. Once upon a time, playing this 1989 banger through certain laptop speakers wouldn't just crash that specific laptop, but could also temporarily compromise nearby laptops from different manufacturers within shoulder-shimmying, head-bobbing distance. Jacob wrote about it when this bizarre tech vulnerability first came to light, but now we know that this absolute belter was a cursed melody to some laptop vendors for half a decade (via PC World).
