I’m in the process of updating my backmasking page into HTML 5. That means I’m (trying to) use your browser’s built in audio playing abilities using the <audio> tag.

So far I’ve only updated the Stairway to Heaven clip, but I plan to go through them all.
Update: I’ve finished creating HTML 5 versions for each song. See the bottom of this post for individual links.

Unfortunately not all modern browsers support the proposed specifications (I’m looking at you Internet Explorer). I’ve tried to fix this by using an embedded Flash audio player for those that have out of date or non-future proof browsers. The irony of switching out of Flash and still being forced to keep Flash is not lost on me.

Please do me a favour by letting me know in the comments if the audio doesn’t work on the browser you’re using. It now works on the iPhone!

Here are the individual links (for permalink / bookmarking purposes):

• Stairway to Heaven
• Imagine
• I’m So Tired
• My Name Is…
• Pokemon Rap
• Empty Spaces
• …Baby One More Time
• Nature Trail to Hell
• Another One Bites the Dust
• Hotel California
• Revolution 9
• Fire on High
• Break on Through
• Beat It
• Paparazzi

Michael Shermer talks about why people believe strange things, including the belief that there are secret messages in popular music when it’s played backwards.

By popular request, from Lady Gaga’s debut album The Fame, comes a little clip of reversed music out of track number three, Paparazzi.

Personally, I can’t hear it even with the “reverse lyrics” showing. To me, Lucifer sounds more like moose-em-mouw, but the emails keep coming. For the record, I’m a complete skeptic.

(More backmasking clips)

After watching The L Magazine’s The Evolution of the Modern Blockbuster Movie (via) I got thinking that I had never actually read the famous Batman – The Dark Knight Returns comic series (wikipedia entry) from 1986 that was used as a rough basis for Tim Burton’s Batman (1989).

I remember hearing about Frank Miller’s, soon to be a collector’s item, The Dark Knight Returns and had always wanted to read it, but I was a bit young for its graphic content and besides, I didn’t exactly have any disposable income for comics when I was 7.

However, as I read it this evening, I came across a page that I found pretty interesting. On page 89 of book two, the comic makes a reference to backmasking in Stairway to Heaven. I’m posting it here to show just one more way the legend crept into popular culture. The relevant panels after the jump.

The Best of Wikipedia is a continually updated collection of some of the most interesting Wikipedia articles. Here’s one from yesterday:

Pareidolia – Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon, and hearing hidden messages on records played in reverse. There have been many instances of perceptions of religious imagery and themes—in 1978, a New Mexican woman found that the burn marks on a tortilla she had made appeared similar to the traditional western depiction of Jesus Christ’s face. Thousands of people came to see the framed tortilla. Pareidolia is a type of apophenia.

(via Best of Wikipedia)

Despite the continued media frenzy surrounding Michael Jackson’s death, I have to admit I’m kind of over it.

However, I felt inspired to look for the “backmasking” message known to be in the song “Beat It”. So I now present, for your skeptical analysis, a new addition to my backmasking page, Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”:

Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon and he did it forty-years ago today. He spoke the now legenday words “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Played backwards, “small step for man”, sounds like wait, I won’t ruin it for you, give it a try below:

Not that it means anything, I just thought someone might find that an interesting coincidence.

Tom Stafford, a member of the Adaptive Behaviour Research Group in the Department of Psychology at University of Sheffield, recently presented the keynote speech at the annual conference of the Association for the Teaching of Psychology at Lincoln in the UK. He talked a little bit about the priming that can occur when you load up my backmasking site. He was kind to present the topic using this slide.

Thanks Tom… you made my day.

Research Digest wrote up an interesting summary of Tom’s keynote talk.

A classic SNL moment—Chris Farley interviews Paul McCartney.

Chris Farley Interviews Paul McCartney (SNL)

An article in the Boston Globe published today highlighted my backmasking page.

Remember that guy in high school who was always trying to tell you about the satanic messages hidden in “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin (below) if you played it backward? Turns out he was right. Or so says Jeff Milner, a graphic designer from Alberta, Canada, who has not only posted snippets of the song, and several others, in reverse, but also transcribed the alleged backward lyrics.

See the full article.

Lately I’ve been enjoying the Wiretap with Jonathan Goldstein podcast (unofficial feed). Today I listened to the November 25, 2007 episode: The New Josh, in which host Jonathan Goldstein interviews David John Oates, the world leader in Reverse Speech studies.

I’ve never been a believer in Freudian slips or subconscious communication, but it’s interesting to listen to Mr. Oates speculate that these kinds of behaviour happen all the time. It’s true that reverse speech sounds like a foreign language and can often even sound like English, but it would take an awful lot of research to convince me his results are anything more than a combination of coincidence and wishful thinking—nevertheless, listen to the interview and form your own opinion.

Back in February 2006, CBC’s The Hour made a road trip through Alberta. They interviewed me for a short segment about backmasking in which they featured my website.

For your viewing pleasure, here is the clip. (Just bear with me getting through the first 15 seconds).

[The Hour: Backmasking - YouTube]

The producer that arranged the interview gave me a DVD with this clip. She said she didn’t have any problem with me putting it on YouTube and now that the CBC regularly puts their content out on the web, I’m even more confident that this should be ok, copyright-wise. Nevertheless, please leave a comment if you notice the video taken offline.

During a segment of The Hour (one in which I was very lucky to be a part of) they showed a backwards clip of a man singing Stairway to Heaven in reverse. Here is some guy doing the same thing, but with a more patriotic song. All the activities he preforms are to add a little spice to the reverse section of the piece.

[What Song is this? - YouTube]

I don’t know if this would count as truly backmasking, but it’s close enough that some of you may find it interesting.

(via)

It took me a few days to get around to reversing the backwards message embedded in the I Am America (And So Can You) audiobook, but now that I have, let me just say, Stephen Colbert does not disappoint.

While complaining that seniors are from the library card generation, Stephen complains that “They don’t believe in buying multiple collector copies no matter what kind of rare, bizarre, or coded message appears in the first addition…” at which point (about 1:18 of track 3) the following audio is heard:

So there you go, proof positive that Stephen Colbert is a liberal and hates America.