Backmasking is a recording technique in which a message is recorded backward onto a track that is meant to be played forward.[1] It is a deliberate process, whereas a message found through phonetic reversal may be unintentional.
Artists have used backmasking for artistic, comedic and satiric effect, on both analogue and digital recordings. It has also been used to censor words or phrases for "clean" releases of explicit songs.
In 1969, rumors of a backmasked message in the Beatles song "Revolution 9" fueled the Paul is dead urban legend.[2] Since at least the early 1980s, Christian groups in the United States alleged that backmasking was being used by prominent rock musicians for Satanic purposes,[3][need quotation to verify] leading to record-burning protests and proposed anti-backmasking legislation by state and federal governments during the 1980s, as part of the Satanic panic movement of the time.
Many popular musicians were accused of including backmasked messages in their music. However, apparent backmasked messages may in fact be examples of pareidolia (the brain's tendency to recognize patterns in meaningless data), coincidental phonetic reversal,[2] or as deliberate responses to the allegations themselves.[4]
After Christian fundamentalists claimed that a line in the title track of their 1974 album Eldorado sounded like 'He is the nasty one – Christ you're infernal' when reversed, the Electric Light Orchestra inserted a deliberately backmasked segment into their next album.