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When rock and roll music first appeared in the 1950s, a lot of people were frightened. All this dancing and gyrating and hooting and hollering was labeled the devil's music. It beckoned youth down a dangerous path towards immorality and destruction. It encouraged disrespect of parents and elders. It spat in the face of strong traditional values. And this music could only lead to a rise in godlessness, which of course meant that everyone was going to hell.
This kind of opposition was seen across the Western world, but was particularly strong in the United States. Preachers railed from pulpits, politicians wailed about juvenile delinquents and their music, rallies were held, records were burned, and this new music was roundly condemned as the worst thing to ever happen to civilization. For the most part though, young people ignored this histrionic caterwauling and kept making and listening to rock and roll.
The anti-rock crowd grew even more apoplectic, especially with the rise of the counterculture of the 1960s and early 1970s. They blame music for everything from long hair to the sexual revolution to drug use to opposition against foreign wars. Rock fans, though, generally took it all in stride. "Yeah, whatever. You're overreacting. Our souls are perfectly safe." I'll tell you what: you do you and we'll do us, okay?
And for about a decade, there was this uneasy divide separating rockers from the religious anti-rockers. Then, in the 1980s and 90s, a portion of society lost its collective mind. To these people, Satan was everywhere in music. His work and influence needed to be exposed and exercised from culture. This wasn't artistic expression. This was Lucifer's sneaky way to seize the souls of the vulnerable, impressionable young.
The Antichrist was at work. Evil, demonic forces were everywhere. You just needed to know where to look. And nothing became more important than casting out Beelzebub's rock music once and for all. It was nuts. I'm Alan Cross, and have I got some stories for you. This is Uncharted, Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry, Episode 5. The Era of the Satanic Panic. And Satan is waving...
Satan is waving, throwing candy. That's a portion of a song by Andy Shouf called Satan. And that's who we're here to talk about. The Dark Lord, Mephistopheles, Diablo, the King of Hell, the Evil One, and specifically his attempt to corrupt the youth to the point of eternal damnation through music.
There's always that faction of society that's been suspicious and afraid of music, especially music enjoyed by the young or being made by those who want to push the envelope. This is not new. This goes back to at least ancient Greece and probably further. 2,500 years ago, critics were up in arms over the music being made by young people, saying that these sounds would eventually lead to something they called excessive emotionality.
They were tut-tutting certain styles of playing that evoked strong passions, something that would inevitably lead to immoral behavior, a decline in discipline, the rise of immodesty, poor character, distraction from intellectual pursuits, and all sorts of irrational thinking. Plato was especially concerned and wrote about it in his work The Republic. He wasn't against music.
He knew that it could penetrate to the very core of the self in individuals. In fact, he wrote this, Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and everything. Because more than anything else, rhythm and harmony find their way into the inmost soul and take strongest hold upon it.
He was also a big believer in using music as a way of educating the young and making sure that they turned into upright citizens. But then he also said this, "The introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state." This was directed at the music the young people of ancient Greece were rocking to. Socrates and Pythagoras also had their beefs with the damn kids and their music.
This attitude continued over the centuries. In 335 BC, the Greek theorist Aristoxenus of Tartarum proclaimed that any combination of notes that sounded out of tune was unwelcome in music. Cleonidas, a busybody who lived in the second century, also implored musicians to stay away from these unclean sounds.
And then after that, a church leader or philosopher would get up on a soapbox every once in a while and condemn the contemporary music of the day, including and especially songs that sounded out of tune. Some believed that anything other than hymns and devotional music was immoral. And there were those who believed that any music would lead one astray and into the pits of hell, eventually.
One of the most infamous cases had to do with Diabolicus Musica, the sound of the devil in music. This was a specific chord that became known as the devil's interval, or if you want to employ some musical theory, a chord known as a flatted fifth. A triad played one chord fret down on the guitar.
For example, if we're talking about a G power chord on a guitar, the first finger goes on the third fret of the low E. The third finger goes two frets up to the fifth fret of the A string. The fourth finger goes next to the third on the D string. So there's your fifth. Strumming this guitar gives you a nice pleasant sound. G, D, G. To flatten that, move the third finger to the next fret down so that D plays as a D-flat.
That introduces dissonance. For some extra oomph, let's hear that on an electric guitar with some distortion. And boom. Cool. There's your devil's triad. And this basic chord construction freaked out religious leaders so much that some of them believed that demons of hell could be summoned just by playing this chord. It was the devil speaking through music.
Contrary to myth, the Catholic Church never banned the Devil's Tritone. But they weren't happy about people using it because, well, it sounded weird. That's it. And to be fair, the human brain tends to prefer harmonious sounds. But to some, these chords sounded powerful and cool. To others, the dissonance was too much, too chilling, too evil-sounding.
Music was supposed to be pleasing to the ears and the soul, not sinister sounding. But if you're looking to convey the range of emotions available through music, it's pretty dumb to consciously avoid this particular chord formation. Yes, such combinations of notes were hard to sing, but that more than anything was why they stepped around the Devil's tritone whenever possible.
But then it did show up in a lot of classical compositions from people like Beethoven, Wagner, Debussy, Liszt, Sibelius, Bartok, dozens of others. When jazz came along, these chords were used a lot, especially when we get to the 1950s with players like Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. And this brings us to Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath. He was a fan of the composer Gustav Holz, especially his symphonic creation called The Planets, which first premiered in London in 1918.
There's a section of the planets called Mars, the bringer of war. He liked that a lot. It featured a flattened fifth that sounded, well, very warlike. Iommi tried it out on his electric guitar, except that he slowed it down and added distortion. In 1970, Black Sabbath released an album called Black Sabbath that included a song called Black Sabbath. And you can clearly hear Iommi's tritone played with a little bit of a trill. ♪
For some, this is the birth of heavy metal. But we also must credit Jimi Hendrix for bringing the tritone to our attention in 1967 with Purple Haze. The opening is all Devil's Triad. It's cool sounding stuff, right? And as heavy distorted music took off in the 1960s and 70s, these kinds of chords proliferated everywhere.
In addition to a ton of Sabbath and Hendrix songs, they can also be heard in David Bowie's Station to Station, The Beautiful People by Marilyn Manson, Blur and Girls and Boys, Cygnus X-1 and YYZ by Rush, Enter Sandman from Metallica. And if not for the devil's tritone, we wouldn't have this TV theme song, which is loaded with Diabolicus Musica. ♪
Let's go back to the church and their stink eye towards contemporary music. In medieval times, the church tried to control the content and context of lyrics and music as well as the music itself. If it wasn't in line with the religious doctrine of the day, you can bet that it would be suppressed. The same thing happened during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation.
Secular music was fine as long as it confirmed to Christian values. If it did not, if it was found to be morally objectionable, songs could be condemned or banned. This continued for hundreds of years, right up until the 20th century.
And while the Catholic Church's sway over music declined, many Protestant denominations, especially evangelical churches in America, decided to take up the fight. And this battle really ramped up with the rise of rock and roll in the 1950s. You see, to them, rock and roll had no place in a world of clean living. And these people had power. After the panic of McCarthyism, the idea that communists bent on destroying the American way were embedded in government and other positions of power,
put the country on a road to a moral panic that continues to be felt today. In 1956, the biggest variety program on television was The Ed Sullivan Show on CBS. Tens of millions of people watched every week, and Ed had a very good gut for what was going to be hot. That's why he booked Elvis Presley to appear three times.
The first appearance on September 9th went off just fine. But the second, airing on October 28th, caused clutching of pearls because of Elvis' swiveling hips. CBS reportedly received thousands of outraged phone calls and letters, many from religious groups complaining about Elvis' blatant sexual moves. And that's why, for his third appearance on January 6th, 1957, Elvis was shown only from the waist up.
Meanwhile, there were growing protests about race music, the R&B made by black performers who were finding fans among white kids. This, said many religious groups, not at all concerned about hiding their racism, was corrupting the young white people of America, leading them into juvenile delinquency. There were protests at radio stations, demands to have this music banned, and plenty of events where R&B and rock records were melted in huge bonfires.
When the Beatles came along in the early 60s, these same religious groups decried the Beatles' long hair and the overt sexiness in lyrics like, I want to hold your hand. No, really. And when John Lennon made a flippant comment in 1966 about the Beatles being more popular than Jesus, two broadcasters, Tommy Charles and Doug Layton from Birmingham, Alabama, started a campaign to ban the Beatles over this blasphemy. And many records were broken and burned.
As 60s counterculture grew, old traditions were pushed aside, much to the shock, disgust, and anger of conservatives. Parents, politicians, and religious groups had no trouble blaming contemporary music, rock and R&B especially, for promoting violence, drug use, immoral behavior, and everything else that their kids were doing or might do. Then the metal and punk of the 1970s just got them into more of a froth.
This music is turning our children into rebellious, disrespectful, and anti-establishment goons. It must be stopped! Punk was singled out because of the music's often angry, nihilistic approach. Not to mention the new fashion styles, which were decidedly non-mainstream. But then we reached the 1980s, and things went completely off the rails.
sending some segments of traditional religious society into paroxysms of panic. A satanic panic, in fact. We'll pick it up there in a moment. Much of the 1980s and even part of the 1990s was taken up with something that's been called the satanic panic. But before it really took off, there was the punk rock panic. Punk was scary to a lot of people, and it wasn't just the loud, raw music.
There were the fashion choices with the torn clothes, safety pins, wild haircuts and makeup, even on guys, which freaked people out. Part of the whole punk thing was to shock, which is why we saw some regrettable use of Nazi imagery. Again, this wasn't any kind of political stance. Using Nazi symbols was there for sheer shock value. So yeah, there was pushback from those who fell for the shock. I remember seeing an ABC after school special called The Day My Kid Went Punk.
And it told the story of a typical American teenager who moved from being a clean-cut kid and lover of classical music to dressing like someone from a new wave band. Forget that the writers and the producer completely confused punk and new wave, but the whole premise is about the prejudices people had against kids who were into this kind of music. Terry Warner's here. Oh, good. Join in. What did his mother tell you about him? Oh, I don't know. Not much.
But this was nothing compared to the hysteria that was the Satanic Panic.
This assault, on a specific part of the music spectrum, began in the very late 1970s and continued through the early 80s. As rock got bigger, louder, and more intense, religious groups promoted their fears and suspicions to parents. The message was that this music did not just sound awful, but it also contained hidden messages and symbols that promoted sexual promiscuity, drug use, immoral thinking, and above all, Satan worship.
For a starting point, we can look at a so-called tell-all book from 1980 called Michelle Remembers by Michelle Smith and Dr. Lawrence Pazder, a psychologist from Victoria, B.C. He began treating Michelle for depression following a miscarriage, but progressed into recovered memory therapy, a technique that's since been thoroughly discredited.
The book states as fact that Michelle was subjected to satanic ritual abuse. This was uncovered by more than 600 hours of hypnosis. That revealed Michelle's mother ran a satanic cult in the 1950s. Oh, this gets good. When Michelle was just five years old, this would be in 1954, 1955, mom had her involved in the Church of Satan. One time there was a ritual that summoned Satan himself, a ritual that took 81 days.
There was sexual abuse, torture, human sacrifice, and various other atrocities. The only evidence came from Michelle under hypnosis. Once all these memories were brought forth, Pazder and Michelle embarked on a mission to expose the truth about how the Church of Satan was alive and well in good Christian society. I should also maybe point out that Pazder eventually married his patient after divorcing his wife and after Michelle divorced her husband.
Their claims blew up with magazine articles, TV appearances, including a spot on Oprah, and a ton of publicity tours, all detailing these sensational allegations. Now, forget for a moment that several different investigations failed to uncover the slightest bit of evidence for any of the claims made or find anyone who could corroborate any of Michelle's story. Zero evidence. But it didn't matter. The satanic panic had begun.
Michelle and Pazder were not alone. There was another book entitled Satan's Underground by Lauren Stratford, which pushed the same conspiracies and was also given Oprah's seal of approval.
Before long, others started making similar claims. By the end of the 70s, there were more than 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of SRA, short for Satanic Ritual Abuse. Sexual assault, torture, murder, sacrifice, incestuous orgies, even cannibalism was said to be part of these rituals. America had been primed for this. Conspiracies involving the devil go as far back as the Salem Witch Trials in the 1600s.
Add in McCarthyism, the fear of nuclear annihilation, books like the fabricated memoir Satan Seller from 1972, the republication of Anton LaVey's Satanic Rituals, the rise of fundamentalist Christian sects, political activism by pastors such as Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, movies like Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist and The Omen. All of these things took tales of Satan deeper and deeper into popular culture.
There was a temporary bump in the popularity of Ouija boards and stories of actual cults like Charles Manson's family in 1969 and their ritual mass murders, the suicide of hundreds of Jim Jones followers in the Guyanese jungle in 1978. Add all this together and the country was ready to lose its mind. The 1970s also saw the emergence of self-proclaimed former Satanists who offered stories of what they knew.
and who were often supported in their claims by Christian evangelists looking to further their careers. Evangelists like Pat Pulling blamed her son's suicide on too much Dungeons and Dragons. We can also talk about the public's fascination with the serial killers of the day: Son of Sam, the Zodiac Killer, the Alphabet Killer, the Hillside Strangler, John Wayne Gacy, and so on. Evil was obviously everywhere, and no one was safe. "Stranger danger" became the buzzword.
There were other more benign factors too. The development of legitimate child care and child protection laws. Revelations of real examples of child abuse and the criminals who engaged in it. Real stories of human trafficking. Recognition of post-traumatic stress disorder and so on. They all got folded into the satanic panic.
One of the most egregious miscarriages of justice during this time was the McMartin preschool controversy. It was alleged, allegations that came out of some extremely dodgy interviews of preschool children, that these kids had been subjected to satanic ritual abuse after being dropped off at the school by their parents. So many lives were completely ruined by repeated investigations that reached the highest levels of government, all of which turned up
basically nothing. The media was all over the McMartin case. Law enforcement officials, often trained by ritual crime seminars, often led by preachers, psychologists, born-again Christians, and therapists, started giving lectures and offering tips on how to recognize if your kid was a victim of satanic ritual abuse. Here's a clip from a training video from 1994. There's two different communities that use this park.
One is the pagan or occultic community, and the other community is the homosexual community. Upon entering the park, I mean, you can see they've already got started. Okay, this is a pentacle. Interesting thing about this pentacle is it's an upright pentacle. This is not a satanic pentacle. Now, the reason why this pentacle would not be considered satanic is because it has one point up. Now, Satanists would reverse...
this star or pentacle as it's called and have two points up those represent the horns of Baphomet and/or the horns of Satan but now right over here I can see on a tree here there's a inverted cross now this is satanic this is a very generic symbol let me see well it's actually fairly fresh too
This here, of course, is a bastardization of Christianity and it's a very common symbol. Obviously, they probably had a party or ritual here within the past night or two. Books and magazine articles were devoted to Satan. A 1988 Geraldo Rivera TV special entitled "Devil Worship: Exposing Satan's Underground"
claimed that there were over a million Satanists in America linked together in a highly organized structure, and they were all committing heinous crimes. It became the highest-rated TV documentary to that point. Geraldo wasn't alone either. TV shows like "2020" ran a story featuring an actual Catholic exorcism. And there were Christian documentaries with titles like "Hell's Bells" that tried to tie Satanism to rock music.
The public was constantly being told that devil worshippers were everywhere, perhaps even your next door neighbor. Others claimed that these American Satanists were part of a much larger global organization that was pulling the strings on all of society. Victims were brainwashed into being sleeper agents and could be commanded to do everything from become an assassin to a prostitute just by the use of code words. There were symposiums around the world where survivors told their stories.
Other schools and caregivers were roped in. The Martensville case in Saskatchewan, a case in Nottingham, England that became known as the British McMartin, another in Cleveland. New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, Australia, and Egypt were all caught up in the Satanic Panic. And those were just the high-profile cases. Dozens and dozens of people were sent to jail. And here's the thing.
Nearly every single one of those convictions has been overturned, including one for a guy who served 20 years of a 40-year sentence. A Cuban immigrant named Frank Fuster was still serving a 165-year sentence for alleged child molestation related to the Satanic Panic. Here's where we can finally talk about music during this time. At the core, parents and church leaders became convinced that rock, especially metal,
was indoctrinating children into following Satan. And this is where we'll get into the backmasking controversy. This episode is all about the mayhem surrounding music and the satanic panic. And before we get into the issue known as backmasking, there's another piece of background that we need.
In 1957, there was a book called The Hidden Persuaders. It was published by Vance Packard. He spent a lot of time in movie theaters and came to the conclusion that they used subliminal commands to increase the sales of popcorn. Turns out that the study was fabricated, but never mind. Then a moral panic was set off in 1973 by a book called Subliminal Seduction by Wilson Brian Key.
He showed how the media and advertising industry used subtle cues to influence and manipulate human behavior. For example, close examination of an airbrushed photo of a glass of ice revealed details of a human skull. The eye wouldn't immediately see it, but the brain picked it up subconsciously, registering it as a reference to death. And that was supposed to make us feel or do something. I'm really not quite sure.
He cited other examples of hidden sexual imagery hiding in plain sight that subliminally registered with the brain, causing quiet sexual arousal and thereby possibly creating a special bond with whatever product was being advertised. The reaction was pretty swift: "I knew there were evil forces at work trying to manipulate me into buying things that I wouldn't otherwise buy or do things that I wouldn't otherwise do." Coming at a time when distrust in all institutions was heading higher and higher,
blame Nixon and Watergate and the oil crisis and inflation and all the other things that I mentioned earlier that confounded, confused and scared people back then, people were quick to believe the book's Orwellian thesis. There was so much concern that there were government hearings into subliminal advertising and its alleged intentional deception of the public when it came to thoughts, attitudes and behaviors. Laws were passed in countries around the world regulating such deception
Even though subsequent studies have shown that hidden messages have little effectiveness. The bottom line is that by the end of the 1970s, many panicky people believed that there were forces out there making us do things we did not want to do. And it was all happening unconsciously, turning everyone into consumerist, Manchurian candidates. Alright.
Let's talk about backmasking, something that became an essential component of the satanic panic when it came to music. And you've probably heard about this at some point. Beginning in the 1960s, artists began to experiment with studio technology. What kinds of sounds could they create in a studio that had no equivalent in the real world?
One of the easiest things to do was to flip over a reel of magnetic recording tape so that when it was mounted back on the machine, it played backwards. The Beatles were big into this. A song like Tomorrow Never Knows from their 1966 album Revolver featured plenty of backwards sounds. It is me, it is me. It is me, it is me.
When the Paul McCartney is dead rumors broke out, Sleuth started looking for clues to prove that McCartney had really died in a car accident on January 7th, 1967. Some of this proof was found hidden in the song Revolution 9 from the Beatles' White Album, which featured a sample of an EMI studio technician saying, number nine.
You run it forward, it sounds like this. But if you spun the record backward on your turntable, this was revealed.
Number nine becomes Turn Me On, Dead Man. That could only mean that John, the writer and creator of this song, was telling people, well, that the dead man was going to tell the truth. And the dead man had to be Paul, right? Forget that this could be some weird audio artifact. It really was a subliminal message that the brain could absorb subconsciously and spill the beans on what really happened to Paul.
Frank Zappa may have been the first artist to have fun with this. In 1968, he and his band, The Mothers of Invention, released an album entitled We're Only In It For The Money. And the very last track on this album is a 26-second thing called Hot Poop, and it contains an actual backwards message. Played properly, it sounds like this.
Wait, hang on. What's that at the end? Let's reverse that. Fun, right? Satanic? Probably not.
By the time we got to the 1970s, all sorts of artists were deliberately putting backwards messages in their music. Here, for example, is the Electric Light Orchestra from 1975 and the Face the Music album. The record leads off with an instrumental entitled Fire on High. 26 seconds in, we hear this. ♪
That is an actual backwards message. So let's reverse it. The music is reversible, but time... Turn back! Turn back! Turn back! Turn back! Spooky cool, right? Studio technology allowed for these kinds of sonic manipulation. And it was all just fun, right? Pink Floyd, Styx, and a ton of others engaged in the same kind of prank. But by the time we get to the early 1980s,
Panicky moralists and religious groups were sure these kinds of things were deliberate attempts to brainwash the youth into becoming Satanists. This is from a 1982 report that supposedly blows the lid off this whole Satanic plot. It is wiping out the morals of our country. It is corrupting our youth, enticing them to experiment with drugs and sex and to follow Satan to hell.
It is rock and roll, and it is now, like in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, getting a bad rap from the pulpit. Saluda, South Carolina. A country town church and evangelist, Billy Adams, a former rock and roller from the 50s who found God in the 60s, and now preaches against the evils of rock and roll, the messages and the beat, and the so-called brainwashing.
There is the issue of backwards masking, that is, putting messages on records backwards so you hear them subliminally if you're playing the message forwards. We have two examples. First off, take Queen. It's a group, and they have a song out now called Another One Bites the Dust, and it's very popular. And forward, it sounds like this. Another one bites the dust. Another one bites the dust.
Now if you take that exact same portion of that Queen record, put it on a piece of tape and played it backwards, it would come out sounding like this. It seems they're saying it's fun to smoke marijuana. That may or may not be the case. You'd have to ask Queen.
In fiery speeches across the country, Adams has preached against Queen, ELO, and Led Zeppelin. Listen to him say, "He is my prince, Satan." Listen for yourself. I'm trying to tell you, whatever you think we're saying, I am trying to prove to you that the recording people have taken time to sit down and put something in reverse.
The satanic panickers started hearing evil, manipulative messages everywhere. This was especially embraced by evangelical churches across the US. And leading the way was a televangelist named Paul Crouch Jr., who hammered the topic on his show on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. With his urging, his followers resurrected the old practice of record burnings and smashings. Their voices got louder and louder and louder until governments were forced to take action. Led Zeppelin got dragged into this.
I'll just jump right into it. It was alleged that playing Stairway to Heaven in reverse resulted in a message that said, Here's to my sweet Satan. I sing because I live with Satan. He will give those with him 666. There was a little tool shed where he made us suffer, sad Satan. Did that get you feeling demonic? Even a little? No? No?
But wait, wasn't it public knowledge that Jimmy Page was into paganism and had an obsession with occultist Aleister Crowley, the self-proclaimed wickedest man of all time? And hey, didn't Jimmy own a house on the shores of Loch Ness where Crowley used to live? And didn't Crowley experiment with backwards messages as early as 1913? Well, yes, yes, and yes, which just fueled this fire.
But the truth is, these evangelicals were victims of a phenomenon known as audio-periodolia. This is where people think they spot patterns in something that is actually really random and ambiguous. That didn't stop them, though. In November 1985, Ozzy Osbourne, the self-proclaimed Prince of Darkness, and a guy who, like many rockers, dabbled in evil, satanic, and occult imagery for shock value, was sued by the parents of John McCollum.
In October 1984, John committed suicide, allegedly after listening to the song "Suicide Solution." The parents contended that the song features the line, "Why try? Get the gun and shoot!" Ozzy said, "No, no, no. My lyricist, Bob Daisley, wrote 'Get the Flaps Out,' which is an allusion to English slang for 'lady bits.'" That case was dismissed. But the Satanic panic soon descended on Judas Priest.
In December 1985, 20-year-old James Vance and 18-year-old Ray Belknap of Sparks, Nevada, near Reno, got drunk, got high, and went to a playground next to a Lutheran church. They brought along a 12-gauge shotgun. Bad combination. They attempted suicide. Belknap died on the scene, while Vance was severely injured. He had a severely disfigured face and didn't die for another three years.
Five years later, Vance's family sued Judas Priest, alleging that the band made him do it. How? By planting a subliminal message, Do It, on a song called Better By You, Better Than Me. This wasn't even a Priest original. It was a cover of a 1969 song by Spooky Tooth that was added at the last minute to their 1978 album Stained Class.
Now, to be honest, Staying Class was a pretty dark record. In fact, Better By You, Better Than Me only made the album because the label wanted to lighten things up a bit. But the family, led by lawyer Ken McKenna, contended that the Priest version encouraged Vance and Belknap to enter into a suicide pact. Someone needed to pay. The trial lasted three weeks. Part of the testimony included guitarist Glenn Tipton telling the court,
that he spent some time playing other Judas Priest songs backwards, showing how he spotted messages like, "Hey Ma, my chair's broken," and "Give me a peppermint," and "Help me keep a job." In the end, though, the case was dismissed. The subliminal messages were nowhere to be found, and even if they had been, those messages were not responsible for the suicides. So said the judge. Judas Priest singer Rob Halford later commented that putting such messages on their records would be counterproductive.
What band would want to reduce their fan base by asking their biggest fans to kill themselves? The man does have a point. The command, buy more records, would be a better idea, he said. Meanwhile, though, Priest was out a quarter of a million dollars in legal fees. Despite all the media sensationalism, the satanic panic over rock music, especially metal, began to die out in the early 1990s, as all the hysterical claims were debunked again and again and again.
but there were at least three more high-profile cases. We have the case of the Memphis Three, three teenagers from Arkansas who were convicted of the murders of three boys in 1993 and 1994. Damien Echols, Jesse Muscali Jr., and Jason Baldwin were all accused of killing the boys as part of a satanic ritual. Even though evidence was dubious, and much was made of the fact that all three of the accused were big fans of goth music, Echols was sentenced to death
while the two others were given life sentences. However, thanks to support from celebrities and musicians, the case against them eventually ended with their release after 18 years in prison. In March 1996, the body of 15-year-old Elise Pollard was found not far from her home in Arad, Grand California. She'd been missing for about eight months. It was later determined that three male friends lured her away with plans of killing her in some kind of satanic ritual. Why?
Well, because they were in a band. It was called Hatred, and they believed that if they made a sacrifice to Satan, the group would become big and they would all become rich rock stars. According to Elise's parents, the inspiration for the killing were two songs by Slayer, Postmortem and Dead Skin Mask. The songs gave detailed instructions to stalk, rape, torture, murder, and commit acts of necrophilia. The case went to trial in 2000 but was thrown out by a skeptical judge.
A second lawsuit was launched, and that too was thrown out. Meanwhile, all three alleged murderers are still in jail. Finally, there's the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 12 students and one teacher. In the days, weeks, and months following the massacre, much was made of the fact that both Harris and Klebold were into goth culture and the music of Marilyn Manson, another guy who used occult imagery.
The focus on music as a cause of the massacre dissipated after expert testimony concluded that Harris was a clinical psychopath and that Klebold was easily led because of depression. Columbine, however, ushered in the era of a true panic, the age of mass school shootings in America. And there is nothing imaginary about that. There are still pockets of people who believe in the allegations of the satanic panic, but the hysteria that we saw in the 80s and 90s is mostly gone.
And after all that, what were the results? Well, parents got advisory stickers on albums. That's about it. The whole period remains a study in moral panic, a time when societal anxieties and fears get overblown, exaggerated, and then exploited by people who think that they have something to gain. Yes, there will always be suspicions about youth and their culture, but it's always been that. And for now, the satanic panic is regarded as a product of its time.
Instead, we have new conspiracies. QAnon, for example. The myth of the stolen American election in 2020. And dozens more. If you have any questions or comments, shoot me an email, alan at alancross.ca. We can also meet up on all the social media sites, along with my website, ajournalofmusicalthings.com. It's updated with music news and recommendations every day. And there's the free daily newsletter that you should get. And if you want more music, there's my ongoing History of New Music podcast.
Join me for more stories of crime and mayhem from the world of music. Technical Productions by Rob Johnston. I'm Alan Cross.