The Greatest Mystery of All Time

In my thirty-eight years of life, I have seen an incredible rate of technological advances. I don't know if computers are actually easier to use these days, but they are definitely more impressive and powerful. From the old Tandy to the newest MacBook, a 10" floppy to a smart phone. The rate of advancement can be mind boggling. One thing I've always kept up with is music media. I'm a music lover and the first music I listened to was Queen on vinyl and Garth Brooks on tape. It then moved to CD's, then an mp3 player than held ten songs, then the iPod and now anything that can stream. I wouldn't be surprised if I had a song on a 3.5" floppy disc, if they fit.

One thing that the move to digital services has is that the album art and such is now tied to the song itself. It's a pit of a lost medium to have to make an album booklet and you don't get to read the lyrics or see what art the band decided to put in, but the main album art is still attached to that song. Or failing that, a default picture of the artist.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, brings me to the greatest mystery of all time.

Often, when you put a CD in a car or manage to sync a player to the stereo, if the screen is big enough to show album art, it will show some. My wife's' Chevy Cruze did this. It wasn't a great player but you could sync it. Now, there is something that happens with these older stereos that I haven't seen since we got rid of that car. You get some weird, fucking art on them.

For example: with the band Puscifer, there was an image of Maynard Keenan in concert, dressed in a sparkly suit and the angle made it seem like it was from a fan to the upper left of him. This is not a picture you will find when searching the band on Google. This is not anything that would appear in any album booklet. It is a crappy picture.

And there are untold amounts of these. Pictures that you will not find anywhere else. If you plug the album into your computer you won't find these pictures. I've played the same songs in the Cruze on our Outback and the picture doesn't return in the Outback. I've also seen this done for trillions of artists. I don't know why this happens. I've never looked it up. I have theories though.

1. These are fan pictures and were added as a low quality picture that is small in size for systems that can't handle the size of a proper picture.
2. The stereos that these work on were all created in China, Russia, North Korea or any other place where internet is controlled by the government. The people build the stereos and load the pictures for the most popular bands on to them. They take the first picture they see online, but since they have limited internet, it ends up being a crappy picture of when that band last played near them.
3. It's a big stereo conspiracy. You want a proper picture? Better spend more money on a better stereo.
4. These actually are the artwork. The chips that the government has implanted in us from the fluoride in our drinking water cause us to see different artwork but for some reason these screens emit a wavelength of light that make it past the mental filters.
5. Aliens.

Have you seen this art, or is all in my head? Am I going slightly mad? Am I one card short of a full deck? Not quite the shilling? One wave short of a shipwreck? Not my usual top billing?