as kids we found that "chrome lettering" look inexplicable, we couldn't understand why people thought that particular kind of gradient suggested chrome-plated metal
and you know what, it really is pretty weird and there was no way we were going to figure it out back then. specifically it's imitating chrome lettering seen on the sides of cars in car ads... and the gradient is simply the reflected scenery from the ad, of a desert/beach landscape that the car is supposed to be romantically driving through. plus it's not even a real landscape, it was almost certainly made in a studio by putting the whole car in a giant lightbox tent with brightly colored paper making fake "sky", "land", etc, for the car to reflect.
so the use of it in tech related to computers and music is trying to evoke that history, in a way that perhaps the marketers themselves don't fully understand but which clearly recapitulates US culture's idea of "cool" over the course of the 1960s-90s.
anyway!!!!! it's cool for sure. more cool now that we can stop wondering what it means to people. yeah for some reason when we were eight years old and asking about this stuff nobody felt able to explain it, very frustrating :D
