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A regular look at the best (and worst) that the web has to offer...
Each generation seems to have trouble coming to terms with the music of the generation that follows. In the 1950s, Rock'n'Roll was denounced as the devil's music, responsible for every kind of lawlessness and depravity. In the 1960s, The Beatles caused an international outcry when John Lennon commented that they were 'bigger than Jesus', and their song "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" was widely viewed as a hymn of praise for LSD.
In the 1970s, punk rock embedded itself in popular consciousness via a few anglo-saxon profanities, and was soon pegged as a cause of violence and social breakdown. And in the 1980s, there were a series of lawsuits aimed at heavy metal bands such as Judas Priest, alleging that they had used subliminal brainwashing techniques to warp children's minds. But the bizarre part about the whole 80s heavy metal scare was that the subliminal messages were allegedly recorded backwards, to 'mask' them from being noticed during normal listening -- hence the term 'backwards masking'.
It's certainly true that backwards sounds have featured in music since The Beatles first began experimenting with tape recording in the 1960s. But the idea of reversed music is much older than that; some of Bach's compositions feature entire sequences of notes which appear both forwards and in reverse. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before some well-meaning Christians alert us to the evil hidden in those innocuous-sounding fugues.
The lawsuits
against heavy metal bands were unsuccessful, but the idea of backwards
masking still lives on. There are many famous examples; an excellent
overview is available from the Audio Reversal In Popular
Culture web page. Even if you think the whole idea is
ludicrous, I recommend downloading and listening to the reversed extracts
from the classic "Stairway to Heaven"; I was particularly impressed by the
one which sounds like "'cause I live with Satan".
Some Christians have managed to make a career out of exposing backwards masking and the evils of rock music; like the Reverend Billy Mayo, for instance. His conversion from drug-addicted rock musician to born-again Christian lead him to found Sonsword Ministries. Now he travels the country teaching young children about the evils of rock music. He also sells an impressive array of books, tapes and videos on the subject. The question is, what sinister messages do his tapes contain if you play them backwards?
On a more secular note, the kooky Reverse Speech web page puts forward the thesis that when we speak, we unintentionally reveal our inner thoughts in backwards form; and that by reversing speech, we can gain special insight. I think the author must have watched way too much Twin Peaks, but I've got to admit the Neil Armstrong sample is fun.
Belief in 'backwards masking' is definitely on the decline. The problem is that over the years, rock groups began to notice that controversy lead to massive publicity, and massive publicity lead to fame and fortune. As a result, most of them are now quite happy to record their Satanic messages forwards. Groups like Marilyn Manson seem to exist purely in order to offend parents. And as always, there are plenty of gullible Christians willing to give them free publicity -- not to mention gullible record buyers who think that buying a hyped album from a corporately-owned band is an act of rebellion.
So now people like Dial-The-Truth Ministries seem to be concentrating on the belief that the repetitive beats in rock music cause people to enter a hypnotic trance state, where they become particularly susceptible to the evil messages in the lyrics. But when I look at some of the evil lyrics which get the Christians worked up, I find myself wanting to laugh. This isn't evil; this is comic-book evil. It's all image, calculated to appeal to alienated teens who need a safe way to rebel against their parents. But no matter how blatantly absurd the message, it seems there's never any shortage of people who'll take it seriously.
Negativland found this out
in 1988. Forced to cancel a tour at the last minute for financial reasons,
they decided it would be fun to issue a fake press statement. The press
release claimed that they'd been advised not to tour by the FBI, because of
a possible link between their heavy metal parody "Christianity Is Stupid"
and a multiple ax murder in Minnesota. To make sure the joke wouldn't be
missed, they gave a fake name for the federal official, and titled the press
release "Negativland tour axed at last minute". They then sat back to see
if anyone would be stupid enough to run the story. Within a few weeks the
press release had been reported as fact by several magazines, and the group
got a call from Rolling Stone asking them if they'd put any backwards
masking into the song "Christianity Is Stupid". The media fallout,
including TV coverage, was extensively sampled as the basis of their next
album "Helter Stupid" -- which of course pokes fun at the idea of backwards
masking too.
But could there be any truth in the idea? Do subliminal messages work? Many people have heard of experiments in the 1950s in which cinema audiences were flashed barely-visible messages encouraging them to eat more popcorn and drink more soft drinks. Numerous companies have made money selling ambient music to stores, supposedly to increase customer spending via subliminal suggestion. And in recent years, we've seen the spread of subliminal self-hyposis tapes, offering to cure everything from depression to nicotine addiction.
Well, that 1950s study was a hoax, as has been extensively documented in Skeptical Enquirer. The whole thing was made up by an advertising agency, to get free publicity. There's also an excellent feature on subliminal programming at the Parascope web site. Subliminal programming simply doesn't work. Even the fundies have started to cotton on: Biblical Discernment Ministries have a publication entitled Subliminals: Science or Myth? Oddly enough, they seem to be mainly concerned about backwards masked Christian messages.
If rock music is the tool of Satan, you might think that maybe Christian Rock would be safe. However, Biblical Discernment Ministries conclude that rock music just isn't compatible with a Christian message. More astutely, they observe that the following for Christian rock outside of evangelical circles is approximately zero -- and that it therefore isn't reaching anyone who wasn't Christian to start with. Unfortunately, they don't make the next logical leap, and realise that guys in makeup singing about Satan are unlikely to turn anyone into a devil-worshipper who isn't one already.
The real reason for the hysteria about modern rock music is that most people's musical tastes become set in stone as soon as they hit their mid-twenties. I reckon that the bits of the brain which process music are like muscles: they need a regular workout. If you don't stretch your brain with new and challenging music on a regular basis, your musical muscles atrophy. Before you know it, you're listening to solid gold oldies on FM radio, and complaining that the music the kids listen to today is just noise; that the lyrics don't make any sense, not like The Beatles with that classic "I am the walrus"...
Don't let it happen to you. Just $15 will get a recent Autechre or Aphex Twin CD. You know it makes sense.
mathew
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Last updated: Wednesday, 30-Nov-2005 17:06:10 CST
