It’s been done on occasion, but just as a joke, an “Easter Egg”.
Here’s a page with a YouTubeof the first part of the presentation (scroll to the bottom of the page).
I remember presentations like this to my youth group at church growing up. The one specific thing I remember was how the album insert for “Hotel California” allegedly had a picture of Anton Lavey. That, and the presenter really loved telling the origin of the band name Duran Duran.
Can you tell me what the supposed origin of the name Duran Duran is?
I have never heard anything about what the name “means” if anything.
Don’t need to make up anything to make it offensive to devout Christian types - it’s from Durand Durand, a character from Barbarella. His major scene was when he used the Excessive Machine on Barbarella, which was basically meant to give her a lethal orgasm. (It…didn’t work, because, well…)
I think you mean Michael Mills from Battle Creek, MI.
Here’s an example of his nuttiness.
A buddy of mine commemorated June 6, 2006 (6/6/6) with a 3 CD mix-tape of 76 songs having to do with Satan/the Devil. Four sermons by Michael Mills were on it.
I’ve always loved Neil Peart’s take on the whole thing, since Rush is often mentioned in backward masking conversations and other ‘ZOMG SATANIC’ type sermons.
Whole article is worth a read, he’s on a roll. It’s from 1981. Worthy of a Pit rant.
Sounds like something “Cecil” would have written a column about, at some point.
ELO did it a number of times, but, as you note, always as “Easter Eggs”.
At the beginning of “Fire On High”, there are clear backwards vocals. Played in reverse, it’s drummer Bev Bevan saying, “The music is reversible, but time is not. Turn back! Turn back! Turn back! Turn Back!” This was done in response to allegations that the song “Eldorado”, on their previous album, had backwards-masked Satanic lyrics.
When the backwards-masking hysteria was at its peak in the early 1980s, they did an album entitled “Secret Messages”, which contained a large number of intentional backwards tracks (including one, at the beginning of “Rock ‘n’ Roll Is King” which says, “thank you for listening”).
A bunch of examples are listed (under “Music”) at the TVTropes page on Subliminal Seduction.
There’s always the classic one from Pink Floyd’s The Wall:
“Congratulations. You have found the secret message…”
Actually there is such a thing, but it is not the thing that this thread is concerned with.
Thanks–that one made my day!
Subliminal Seduction?
Way to make kids run to the store so they could see all the dirty words on the cracker boxes. And yes, I think the anti rock guy came through Albuquerque and delivered his lecture here in the early 80’s. I ultimately decided he took everything too literally and was even trying to convince people that songs which were about violence and drugs but clearly not in favor of them were sinful. (Because if we don’t ever hear of unpleasant things, that means they go away, don’t they?)
Don’t know about backward masking; I heard the supposed Stairway to Heaven message about 40 times and each time it was different. I could make out a Satan but if I snored enough someone would probably hear me call upon him in my sleep.
Whenever I listen to Queen I get a sudden urge to scout mare wanna (because it’s sfun.)
Devil Bunnies!
If you want to investigate Rock Music from a (batshit) Christian point of view, be prepared to waste a few weeks of your life here
Has anyone ever proved that backmasked messages are perceived on any level other than by playing the song backwards?
Oh, I almost forgot – the guy I listened to who railed against devil music reluctantly acknowledged that it was impossible for the bands to do it on purpose (except when they obviously did, like the easter egg examples). The fact that the messages appeared without the band’s intent was CLEAR PROOF THAT THEY WERE BEING SUPERNATURALLY USED BY SATAN TO SPREAD HIS MESSAGE.