Back in college (1991-ish) a friend of mine gave me a cassette tape called “Rock music and the Christian”. It was a recording of a 60-90 minute presentation about backward masking in rock 'n roll music, presented by a Christian Fundamentalist-type guy who’s name now escapes me, but I think it was Mike Adams.
Anyways, notwithstanding the guy’s agenda, it was without a doubt the best presentation of ‘Satanic’ rock ‘n roll backward masking’ I’ve ever heard, and included a lot of pretty interesting history of occultism in the rock 'n roll industry as well. (We’ve all heard about supposed backward masking and hidden messages, but this was an actual presentation of categorical examples - awesome.)
Has anyone else ever heard of this guy (I’m not 100% certain about the name ‘Mike Adams’) or the presentation (I am 100% certain about the title ‘Rock music and the Christian’)?
I picked up this book, Why Knock Rock? by Dan and Steve Peters, at a thrift shop, and really got a bang out of it. When I first read your OP, I thought it might be the same, but I guess not.
I always suspected they might be the ones who gave a presentation at the private Christian school I went to…maybe it was this Mike Adams guy. It was fascinating. I remember being warned against:
Fleetwood Mac (particularly the song Little Lies)
George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord (pagan gods)
KISS (Kids in Satan’s Service, of course)
Ozzy (bat-eating, etc.)
The Starland Vocal Band’s Afternoon Delight (it ain’t about skyrockets)
The same type of people who claimed there was “Backward Masking” in rock music are the same type who are hearing ghost voices in the white noise and static of un-tuned radios.
If artist knew about subliminal backward masking, it would say stuff like “Buy our Records”, or “See our Shows and buy a T-shirt”
Yeah, the one I’ve got doesn’t talk about KISS, but he hits the other three you mention. Also, Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven (in particular) and a lot about Jimmy Page. The backward masking segments definitely required something akin to suspension of disbelief, because (as our old pal Dio so helpfully pointed out), there’s really no such thing as backward masking. I think yanceylebeef is right - if rock stars were going to beam subliminal messages into our brains it would no doubt be geared more towards increased record sales than Satanism.
I wonder what they’d make of Crimson Thorn, one of the heaviest bands I’ve ever heard(and quite serious Christians, too). I’m not sure if my link here is really to their heaviest song, but it gives a taste of them.
I can tell you that Mike Adams is far from the only fundamentalist Christian who believes that Satan is all over rock & roll. I grew up in the 80’s when such talk was all the rage. It seems to have died down quite a bit now, if not entirely.
There are lots of Christian acts that are rock & roll, heavy metal, etc. Most (all?) of those who oppose rock & roll on Satanic grounds don’t give a pass to Christian musicians doing the same thing.
The late David Wilkerson of The Cross and the Switchblade fame was a well known anti-rock crusader, but there were plenty of others in the 70s and especially the 80s.
I once went to a seminar led by a guy who claimed to be a roadie for all kinds of rock bands in the late 70s and 80s and “exposed” all kinds of things about backward masking and submliminal messages on album cover art. Alice Cooper is posessed by a demon! Rush promotes communism! “Pour Some Sugar on Me” is a Satanic ritual!
ETA: I forgot he also told us D&D (which I played) was a tool of the occult and I was opening the door to demonic infestation. Whee!
Could it have been Paul and Jan Crouch’s son (whose name escapes me)? When I was a kid/teenager my mom used to watch TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network) which was full of televangelists with big hair, bad suits, and scary eyelashes. I do remember sitting down with her to watch the presentation on rock music, though–I thought it was interesting even though I was convinced it was utter hogwash. He talked about Highway to Hell, Stairway to Heaven (discussing various pagan imagery in the song), Blue Oyster Cult, and an ELO (I think) song where if you play it backwards you can clearly hear “The music is reversible, but time is not. Turn back! Turn back!” and several other popular bands/albums from the 70s/early 80s.
I forgot who it was, but IIRC, one rock dude said something to the effect of “if backward masking worked, we’d have told them to buy more of our records, plus studio time is too expensive to mess around with that, anyway”. I would venture that the percentage of rock musicians who give a crap about Satan is negligible. Psychochristians like to tarbaby rock musicians with the Satan thing because a lot of them are simply antiauthoritarian, which of course includes religious authority. The backward masking legend only still bounces around due to the innate credulousness of religious types.
It was someone from Judas Priest, I believe, after a lawsuit claiming that a couple of kids had shot themselves because of subliminal messages in their music. Extensive audio analysis led a judge to say that the claims were complete horseshit and throw the case out.
I recall my mother coming home from a Parents’ Club meeting when I was in probably 7th grade at the local Parish school and asking if I listened to any of the “Heavy Metal” music. Apparently there had been a presentation that night warning them all of the evils of backward masking. I think I told her something along the lines of “yes, mom, I do. And they’re making all of that stuff up”. I even played Stairway to Heaven backwards on my turntable for her. She never mentioned the subject again.
And while I’m here, I feel compelled to say: I snort the nose, Lucifer! Banana, banana!