Backward Masking

bigmouth

If you're under about 30 this might not mean much to you but during the 80's and 90's there was always a heap of counsel on debasing music.It made you terrified to listen to anything except the brilliant kingdom melodies. We had a big thing here in NZ about music that had been recorded in such a way as to give some sort of demonic message in a subliminal way.We couldn't listen to Stairway to Heaven,Hotel California and a host of other songs.Ah hell!, we may as burn everything.But I found Devo's Whip It is masked and now I couldn't care less,great song.Of course you could only check by turning your vinyl backwards.Anyone get freaked out back then too?

loosie

I remember the hype (does that make me old), But I never could hear anything intelliblie. Maybe I had the wrong kind of music.

Effervescent

I can remember the hype about "backmasking" as it was called in our area, quite well.

I can remember my Grandpa and Grandma having a record smashing session with my aunt and uncle, who were teenagers at the time. To their credit they turned it into a fun thing, using them as frisbies and the like. I was pretty young at the time and couldn't begin to tell you what the records were.

Artists who I remember my stepmother telling me were satanic were "Queen", "Beatles" "Rolling Stones" "Eagles"... among others.

Eagles have got to be my favorite group of all time now

jwfacts

I spun all those records backwards and could never find anything. The only backward masked stuff I found was on a Cure song, but it didnt say anything special or bad, it was just people talking. I think they included it just for effect as going forward it had a very strange sound.

Oroborus21

Greetings!

This is mostly the stuff of Urban Legend. Most records spun backwards sound pretty scary and that is enough to lead ones to imagine that they hear what they are expecting.

However, there are a few songs where the technique was deliberately introduced. One of Prince's songs off of the Purple Rain album has a section of backward masked sound. You know it when you come to the end of it. I think it is "Darling Nikki". Anyway I don't know if it was Prince's joke but the words as I recall when you play it backward actually are "Hallelujah, Hallelujah, the Lord is Coming Soon" so I always that was probably a shot at the rabid fundy types that were all up in arms about backward masking.

Masking with audio is entirely different than say subliminal imaging in visual mediums and it is impossible to create a song that sounded totally normal but when played backward conveyed a distinct message so such fears about listening to all of these artists' songs was obviously overblown, unless the audio comprising the signal with the message was outside of human hearing while playing forward but within it when played backward. (not too mention that the idea, the why's and reasons for doing such a thing and the potential for actually creating any kind of effect upon the listener with such a technique are all irrational and stupid.)

A person listening to a normal record that contained something backward masked would certainly detect atonality and other "garbage" and the songs would no doubt sound terrible which is why it is easy to know which part of a song has some backward masking such as the Prince song I mention above.

-Eduardo Leaton Jr., Esq.

Kaylen

I remember that there s hardly ever any music we could listen to when we used to get together for engagement parties an dsuch they would just have square dancing lol

Simon

Its known as phonetic reversal and seems to exist in some records. Is it 'some influence' or clever musicians playing tricks? Who knows ...

There is some fascinating reading here (listen to the clips):

http://www.triplo.com/ev/reversal/

The Stairway to Heaven reversal is particularly impressive - 7 consecutive lyrics that when reversed say almost the exact opposive to the forward lyrics.

FlyingHighNow

One area that I did what I wanted to, mostly, was listening to the music I wanted to.

daniel-p

Soundgarden admits to doing this on their earlier tracks, insterting "satanic messages" and so forth. Regardless, I always thought it was silly. I spun my mom's old records backwards and ruined the needle! But yeah, there was a lot of council about music back in the 80's and 90's. Not so much nowadays. I guess the internet has pretty much overshadowed any bad influence of TV and music.

jwfacts

That site is great. I thought this was interesting about Prince. He did some backward masking after the song Darling Nikki.The site says;

"The message itself has religious overtones, contrasting directly with the overtly-sexual "Darling Nikki" which precedes it. Was the reversal meant to invert the message itself, or was it meant to hide an apology?
"Hello. How are you? I'm fine 'cuz I know that the lord is coming soon. Coming, coming soon.""

So Prince was a JW all along, just posing to be a depraved sex starved Satan worshiper so he could get his Christian message out to the gullible teenagers.

Backward Masking

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