so-called subliminal messages in songs?
 

I googled" songs played backwards" just out of bordom. I didn't know that it was actually called "backmasking" and used to decyfer "hidden messages" in some songs. I saw a big long list of songs with backmasking. Is it real? fake? what do you guys think? I listened to quiet a few on the list. Its kind of crazy lol

People read too much into songs and waste a ridiculous amount of time doing it. It's all BS, really.

The best thing I ever read about backward masking wasn't, admittedly, to do with music but with TV. In the episode of cult sci-fi comedy "Red Dwarf" called "Backwards" (everything happens, who can guess? Yeah, backwards) there's a scene where a pub owner comes in and tells two of the characters, who had been performing there as "The Sensational Reverse Brothers" (basically doing their act FORWARDS, which to the people of backwards world was hilarious, you get the idea) that they're fired, for starting a fight --- which has yet to happen. It's backwards world after all.

The good bit is, for those who somehow managed to take the discs and spin them backwards (think this only applied to videotapes) the guy is actually saying, backwards, something like "Haven't you got something better to do than running this backwards to see what it says?"

Love the irony in that!

The legitimacy of backmasking as some kind of subliminal tool has been pretty effectively discredited for a while. There's an old study from 1985 that takes the whole issue to task in reaction to the hysteria of some Christian groups that smashed records at large gatherings. For reference, the study is "Subliminal Messages: Between the devil and the media" by John Vokey and J. Read. When they were working with their subjects, they found that even their ability to determine the language and word content of the backmasked material was a crapshoot (55.8% recognition of a forward-read word that had just been in a backmasked sentence doesn't exactly suggest any kind of comprehension).

I think we already have a thread about this somewhere.

Anyway, one of the great backward messages imo is from The Wall by Pink Floyd. If you play the beginning of the song "Empty Spaces" backwards it says, "Congratulations. You have just discovered the secret message. Please send your answer to Old Pink, care of the Funny Farm, Chalfont."

the creepiest one I had saw was the one in stair way to heaven. its still gives the chills.

i swear i read an interview with Peter Christopherson....i think it was in the book Tape Delay.....this was when he was in Psychic TV....so post TG and Pre Coil.....he said something about the concept of telling the listener there are subliminal messages....whether there are or aren't no longer matters....as the mind will start to create and distinguish it's own message....allowing the listeners mind to creates its own message

on that Coil's Time Machine project was meant to "tell" the brain to release chemicals that would mock the effects of the chemical properties they are named for....personally never had that reaction.....but a great album for relaxing when i can't sleep

and please do not forget Judas Priest.....i had met those kids....actually the park they shot themselves in was a neighborhood park.....those kids were dicks....pulling the i'm bigger and older than you bull**** to kids (me) in a park.....one "lived" and the entire trial was based on the possible testimony of a kid who literally blew half his brains out....and now Judas Priest skips Reno when on tour

I remember that episode, never knew about that extra little bit. Great irony indeed :tramp:

:whythis: