The Noisey Guide to Completely Insane Music Conspiracy Theories

Who doesn’t love a good conspiracy theory, right? Whether it’s about 9/11 being an inside job or tomes of evidence that we’re all descended from aliens, conspiracy theories can get really, really entertaining. Perhaps the funniest ones of all, however, have to do with musicians. You know about the big ones – at some point, you’ve probably seen an angry tween sporting a Nirvana t-shirt and clutching a homemade “COURTNEY KILLED KURT” sign – but that’s only the beginning. There’s a fascinating, niche world of absolutely insane music-related conspiracy theories out there. It’s seemingly endless and far-reaching—so we decided to do you a favour and pick the best ones we could find. Behold: here are the most batshit-crazy, entertaining music conspiracy theories we could find.

Pitbull could very well be a genius. After all, the man’s built himself a lengthy career on songs yelling "culo", his terrible goatee and wildcard moves like publishing multi-year plans for success. So really, it isn’t that surprising that a mind that gifted could also predict the disappearance of an airplane. Yes, people: apparently, Pitbull knew all along that the Beijing-bound flight MH370 would disappear without a trace in 2014. This is due to suspicious song lyrics in his 2012 track, “Get It Started”: in the banger, there’s a bit when Shakira sings “Now it’s off to Malaysia/ Two passports, three cities, two countries, one day.” This may sound like your typical reference to the lavish lifestyle of poppin’ bottles on planes, but according to [" target="_blank">YouTube commentary](http://<iframe width=), it's not so. Apparently, it's actually a reference to the stolen Austrian and Italian passports to men used to board the flight. Pitbull, you sly dog, you!

Now, you may think that famed American country legend Kris Kristofferson is a regular nice guy—but you’re so, so wrong. Kris Kristofferson is actually a LIZARD. The whole conspiracy started back in 1999, when some British writer and sports broadcaster named David Icke published a book called The Biggest Secret. In this book, Icke tried to convince everyone that the world is actually controlled by an alien race of reptilian humanoids—one of whom is Kris Kristofferson. According to Icke, these lizard freaks fill their time by carrying out human sacrifices, chugging down blood, molesting children and worshipping Satan. Who would’ve thought a guy your dad probably plays on repeat in his car is capable of all that as well as having a sex slave?

We saw this one coming a bit, didn’t we? Like, if some people are crazy enough for Queen Bey to camp out in line for two months before her concert, some people will also be crazy enough to cook up a conspiracy theory about her baby. This one resulted from a medley of three pieces of evidence. Piece number one: apparently, her stomach size kept on dramatically fluctuating throughout her pregnancy as seen in awards shows and interviews. Piece number two: apparently, she kept on changing the due date of her baby. Piece number three: minimal pregnancy photos were to be found. All of this could be explained by, oh, let's see, the fact that a massive celebrity probably wants to keep the world from seeing her descend from hot goddess to sweaty, blobby pregnant woman—but that’s boring, right? Best to summarize those three facts as proof that BEYONCE NEVER HAD A BABY. Maybe Blue Ivy is one of those lizard reptile people along with Kris Kristofferson, mmmm?

Where do we even start with this one? There’s even a Wikipedia page for it—it’s that extensive. So the story goes that Paul apparently died in a car crash in 1966 and was replaced by a look-alike to keep the whole Beatles money-grab afloat. Since the theory emerged in the late 60s, believers have passionately thrown tons of ‘clues’ forward as evidence. These include deep analyses of hidden messages in Beatles’ song lyrics and creative interpretations of Beatles’ album covers. They also include decoding hidden messages in Beatles songs if you play them backwards, which eases us into our next theory…

Sometimes, the most beautiful things hide darkness at their cores. In this case, that sinister heart belongs to Led Zeppelin’s classic “Stairway to Heaven”; apparently when played backwards, the sweet sounds and crooning vocals turn into an ode to the devil—as exemplified by the Dutch artist in the video above. Specifically, televangelist Paul Crouch claims that the “bustle in your hedgerow” part played backwards says "Here's to my sweet Satan/The one whose little path would make me sad, whose power is Satan/He will give those with him 666/There was a little toolshed where he made us su¬ffer, sad Satan." Perhaps unsurprisingly, this spawned a movement of other hunts for undercover satanic messages in popular songs when you hear them backwards. Just check out this website accusing hits like “Hotel California” and “Paparazzi” of being odes to the devil.

We wrote about this one a little while back, but let’s recap: a Brazilian Avril Lavigne fansite claimed that Avril, unable to handle the pressure of the success of Let Go, committed suicide—so her label inserted a doppleganger to take her place. Evidence? Avril’s changing skin blemishes; Avril’s inability to logically answer random questions about clones in interviews; her changing musical influences. If you try hard enough, you can believe anything, we guess…

Photo via Lazerhorse

Since Jay-Z’s already been accused of being a member of the illuminati, it only makes sense he’s also a vampire, right? This theory emerged when some dude from a research centre threw up a photo on Tumblr from 1993 featuring a guy who looks a lot like Jay-Z. Just look at the unrefutable evidence above you. That's clearly Jay-Z in the 30s… right? Right?!?
Of course, that photo spawned a whole domino effect of evidence. People started pulling out references to the undead from his album titles like In My Lifetime and Don’t Let Me Die and even claimed that his role as exec producer for The Great Gatsby film was prompted by his life in the time when Gatsby actually existed. It’s all adding up now, isn’t it?