Backwards: The Crusade Against Rock Music and the Artists Who Defied It
Between 1979 and 1990, a small coalition of evangelical preachers, congressional spouses, and concerned parents convinced substantial portions of the American public that rock music was a deliberate satanic recruitment operation. They held album-burning ceremonies. They published books decoding backward-masked demonic messages in mainstream radio hits. They got the U.S. Senate to hold hearings. They sued Judas Priest for two suicides. The bands, watching the panic unfold around them, eventually started recording actual backward messages in their songs — sometimes as satire, sometimes as defiance, sometimes as a kind of dark joke at the panic's expense. The inaugural Era essay.
By Deep Cuts · Issue 05 · · 15 min read