Apparently Janet’s song Rhythm Nation emits a frequency that for a popular brand of Hard Drives from 15+ years ago, would disrupt the arm and disk which would crash the laptop. No point to this; I just thought it was funny and interesting.
That sounds a lot like an urban legend.
Anything to backup this story? I’m pretty sure Hard Drives don’t work this way.
This Billboard article from last year features the claim, made by a Microsoft executive, and indicates it’s a problem for hard drives that spin at 5400 rpm.
This Wired article, also from last year, has some more technical details.
This sounds like something from Douglas Hofstadter, “Songs to Destroy Record Players”.
Adam Neely did an explainer video:
Yes!!! I was thinking the same!
Much more high tech than the The Return of the Durutti Column sandpaper album sleeve, designed to damage the LPs placed on either side of it.
I appreciate other people posting links. I heard the story on 99% Invisible and probably should have credited that in the OP. And yeah non solid state Hard Drives are basically record players in principle.