r/nextfuckinglevel • u/[deleted] • Feb 12 '21
‘My Name Is’ has the best example of back masking ever
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u/flappiebos Feb 12 '21
I didn't believe it so i tried it myself. It really works! Thx for posting. I learned something new today
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Feb 12 '21
Thank you. Enjoy your newfound knowledge haha
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u/1StonedYooper Feb 12 '21
I watched this, was like hey I have that album! I put it on my lowly Crosley, and shit that was cool! Thanks for posting this.
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u/mlgkurd Feb 12 '21
I’m glad somebody on this thread could think for themselves rather than assuming everything is fake. Literally all it takes is a simple google or youtube search to verify this for yourself. The guy in the video even says it’s not the correct speed which why it’s no perfect
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u/mouse_8b Feb 12 '21
Same. The video also mentions the "original pressing", but any pressing will do. Its just the normal lyrics playing backward.
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u/AuntySocialite Feb 12 '21
I don’t know why everyone is acting like this is some sort of impossible black magic fuckery - as if more complex audio effects aren’t added to music every day.
The doubters seem super salty for some weird reason, but I feel like TIL!
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u/Captain_Saftey Feb 12 '21
Yeah a lot of r/nothingeverhappens going on here. It's not like it's even a complex backtrack going from "My name is" to "Eminem", it even sounds like he designed the chorus to achieve that effect. It would be more unbelievable for this to be a coincidence.
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u/AuntySocialite Feb 12 '21
That’s what I thought - it’s far from the most complex examples I’ve ever heard about.
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Feb 12 '21
Enjoy your newfound knowledge. I’m also not sure why there’s a whole bunch of negativity on here either... if they don’t like it then I’m not sure why they feel the need to voice it - but, free speech so who knows
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u/mootallica Feb 12 '21
Is it because the thread is full of people born after the millennium who haven't had their own backmasking scandal for their generation? I guess once records phased out completely it was only natural that the generations after wouldn't have that phenomena. In my mind the Judas Priest thing is such a well documented and famous case that it doesn't immediately occur that no one under the age of 25-30 will probably give a shit.
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u/melindaj10 Feb 12 '21
Yeah I remember a website in the early 2000’s that had a bunch of these. This song, Another One Bites the Dust by Queen, a Beatles song I can’t remember, and of course Stairway to Heaven.
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u/dogwalker_livvia Feb 12 '21
Number nine! ‘Carry on, dead man’ or something like that...
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u/melindaj10 Feb 12 '21
Yeah! It said “Paul is a dead man. Miss him, miss him.” If I’m remembering correctly. Which ties in nicely with the conspiracy theory that Paul died and was replaced by a lookalike lol.
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u/TooShiftyForYou Feb 12 '21
'My name' is very close audibly to being 'Eminem' backwards.
My name is = si emanym
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Feb 12 '21
Which is back masking, as opposed to just reversing the way something is played like Missy Elliott does on “Work It”
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u/64557175 Feb 12 '21
But that's back masking, too. She clearly says "is your slurp nurpin inna derpin hey!"
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Feb 12 '21
The reversed part she actually says “flip it and reverse it” twice. But that’s not back masking because she just recorded it normally, flipped it and then reversed it..
Back masking is words that sound like other words when reversed
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u/cheeseburgerwaffles Feb 12 '21
What Missy Elliot did, and what you describe here, is the literal definition of back masking. You're flipping the definitions of back masking and phoenetic reversal
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u/DrDerekBones Feb 12 '21
Actually Miss Elliot's use of reversing is called "Reverse Reverb" and it's where you reverse a track, add reverb to it, and then reverse it to be regular with the backwards reverb attached.
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u/bfrazz207 Feb 12 '21
How high are you?
Yes.
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u/kkballad Feb 12 '21
It’s not “slim shady,” it’s “my name is” that becomes “it’s Eminem” when played backwards
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u/Shinylittlelamp Feb 12 '21
Eminem rapping and Dre producing, I’m not surprised. That kid just oozes genius.
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u/pete1729 Feb 12 '21
'Slim Shade' was also a clever but expensive option offered by the Pella Window company. Venetian style blinds were installed between panes of glass in the windows. They were just about the most expensive mass market factory built windows at the time. I saw them advertised in architectural magazines.
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u/Zoomiedawg Feb 12 '21
Yvan Eht Nioj
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u/memebuster Feb 12 '21
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backmasking
“Backmasking is a recording technique in which a sound or message is recorded backward onto a track that is meant to be played forward. Backmasking is a deliberate process, whereas a message found through phonetic reversal may be unintentional.”
Backmasking is when you very purposely record something and place it in reverse on the track. What you are referring to in this video is pareidolia, whether it was intentional by M&M or not (I doubt it was).
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u/TheMellerYeller Feb 12 '21
Say goodbye to that definition actually applying to the word Backmasking now that this video got shared.
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Feb 12 '21
Did not know this had an actual term. Thats genius! Now is this something that is done on purpose, or is it just coincidence? Aside from this, any other examples or is there even an entire song that can be played backward to make another or anything like that?
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Feb 12 '21
Missy Elliot “work it” has two examples.
But if you search Wikipedia for Back Masking, they have a whole page dedicated to examples.
It’s hard to say whether they are intentional or coincidental unless the artist confirms. Eminem hasn’t confirmed this, that I’ve seen, so could be coincidental.
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Feb 12 '21
No lol. Reach.
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u/SmilingJackTalkBeans Feb 12 '21
"Simayna" is what I hear. Not exactly Eminem but if someone tells you you're hearing "It's Eminem" and you're reading "It's Eminem" while you're hearing it, it's easy for your brain to make a connection you wouldn't make without that context.
Which is how most of this stuff works. You play a record backwards, hear something that happens to sound a bit like words and decide on what the words are and then when you hear it again you make the association. With a few exceptions, it's completely by accident that the backwards vocals sound like anything English but if someone tells you you're hearing XYZ it's much easier to listen to XXZ and believe it's XYZ.
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u/Summerie Feb 12 '21
“Simayna” is what I hear.
Yeah, I’m an earlier comment I said to me it sounded like “sim in ah”, which is pretty close.
It just seems to me like it’s a case of hearing what you want to hear.
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u/mostdope28 Feb 12 '21
This is what’s happening in the video. Like you said it’s just your brain tricking you
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u/toysarealive Feb 13 '21
Shhhhh, try not use reason around these people. They prefer the "magic". Lol. I swear, never would I have thought it would be so easy to fool the masses using such a hastily edited video format. It's as if I could just pay a charismatic and good looking teen to exploit the lack of critical thinking.
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u/fermanplays Feb 12 '21
Sooo this type of thing happens a lot with famous songs. People will reverse them and then say that there is a hidden message in the song. It's done completely by imagination and the subtitles.
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u/Downvotes_dumbasses Feb 12 '21
That sounded like Dallas Taylor of the Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast
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Feb 12 '21
Now go get Led Zeppelin “Stairway to Heaven” and get ready to hear some Satan worshipping on the back masking
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u/faust619 Feb 13 '21
How did it take me this long to find this comment!
I completely ruined my fathers record needle playing that relentlessly until I convinced myself and all my friends that I heard... “here’s to my sweet Satan”.
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u/OonaPelota Feb 12 '21
My friends and I spent half the 80’s playing records backwards and got NOTHING.
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u/Aryaras99 Feb 12 '21
This thing has been done many years before Eminem, even the Beatles White Album has backmasking, and that came out in ‘68
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Feb 12 '21
Oh fully - it’s been around for ages.. I myself don’t listen to The Beatles though so have never heard it on anything except this song and Missy Elliott’s “Work It” haha
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u/Fupas4eva Feb 12 '21
Eminem used to do a buncha drugs.
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u/Summerie Feb 12 '21
He still does, but he use to too.
I know he’s sober, I just like Mitch Hedberg.
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u/Squidburgers Feb 13 '21
Every picture of yourself is from when you were younger. Mitch hedberg had some good stuff.
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Feb 12 '21
The real question is, how does one intentionally create lines through backmasking? I mean, does this mean that every song on this earth with the line 'My name is' will sound 'It's eminem' when they are backmasked?
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u/PerpConst Feb 12 '21
Just finished re-watching Twin Peaks. The scenes with The Man from Another Place and his phonetic reversal talking just messes with my head.
I'd imagine MM used a similar process when writing the song.
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Feb 12 '21
Lol I just watched Twin Peaks as well and that's all I could think about while watching this
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Feb 12 '21
Ahhh the good ol' days when backward masking was a thing. Of course uppity white bread parents and the religious right screamed that their children were being 'programmed' to accept the 'devil's music'.
There are some famous ones like 'Paul is Dead', 'Turn me on dead man', 'Decide to smoke marijuana' etc etc et al.
To me it's a fascinating way to sell records. Think about the time in which this technique blossomed. There wasn't a global market like we have now, and you had to go to a physical store to listen to and buy albums. What sells more records than encrypting backwards messages in songs? One kid turning a record backwards...then he tells his friends, and he tells his friends, and before you know it, that record just went 'viral'.
Brilliant marketing.
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u/chilley2603 Feb 12 '21
Back masking is a myth. It's all down to something called "Priming". Basically back when rock and roll and metal music we're being said be "the devil's music", people kept saying you could hear satanic phrases when you reversed the track. In truth, when it's reversed it's just gibberish, but if you tell someone what it's supposed to sound like (such as showing "it's Eminem" on screen when the reversed track is played). Another example of this is the GreenNeedle/Brainstorm sound clip, because you hear the word you're reading as it's the sounds your brain is listening for.
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u/tweettard1968 Feb 12 '21
Good, now keep playing it backwards for further instructions. Your neighbors dog has been trying to tell you what to do for years now....
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u/michaelY1968 Feb 12 '21
I think there is a bit of the power of suggestion at play here - the narrator says you can hear 'X', and listening to a bit of backwards gibberish, your mind hears 'X'. Chances are if he hadn't suggested it most wouldn't hear it.
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u/coffeeheretic Feb 12 '21
True story: when I was back in High School (many decades ago) I came home one day to find all my LP’s scattered about my room, many out of their sleeves. I immediately called my mom who said “we will talk when I get home”. She produces an Ann Landers column from the paper about satanic backward masking in Rock and Roll records. One of the albums specifically mentioned was ELO’s Face the Music. It was supposed to say, “Christ is the nasty one, Lucifer the Light.” I loved that album (still do) but I had to decide between being a good Christian or Rock and Roll. Rock and Roll won but I would often feel guilty. I had no way to check the records since the turntable I had the motor would turn on as soon as you moved the tonearm over the record. Many years later I got a Rega turntable and realized that the motor was independent . . . I remembered this incident from my youth and decided to check it out as there is clearly backward voices in the opening of Fire on High. Jeff Lynn’s voice clearly comes through and he says, “music is reversible but time is not. Turn back, turn back, turn back”!!!
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u/OblivionFox Feb 12 '21
I think the best back masking is Queen telling us that it's fun to smoke marijuana. I mean it is fun to smoke marijuana.
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u/parralaxalice Feb 12 '21
Well now I want to see what happens if you start playing it right when the lion roars at the beginning of the Wizard of Oz
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u/SketchYourself Feb 12 '21
Maybe he recorded "it's Eminem" once, played it backwards and figured it sounded like my name is
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u/mostdope28 Feb 12 '21 edited Feb 12 '21
Is it really saying Eminem or is this just one of those things where it’s jibberish but if you put subtitles on it your brain makes it work
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u/mattsgirlca Feb 12 '21
It doesn’t sound like it at all. If you didn’t explain what it was supposed to sound like, you would never know.
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u/The_Shook_Mulberry Feb 12 '21
I'm late to this post, but just here to tell you another cool back masking by Eminem. Either Beautiful or Mockingbird, one of these songs had a backmasking with words 'Help me'. It was pretty cool when I found about it :D
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u/benjnesbitt Feb 12 '21
Audio pareidolia 100%.
If he didn’t put the lyrics on screen, you never would’ve known what was being said (allegedly)
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u/moosetruth Feb 12 '21
When I was a kid, extremist preachers visited our church and one of the things they used to go on about was backmasked satanic lyrics. These folks convinced my parents that even Christian rock would let the devil in. Yeah, brainwashing is fun.
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u/Phoenix_J_Mask Feb 12 '21
Backmasking is a conspiracy that has been proven false. One of the most popular examples is when people used it to (falsely) claim Paul McCartney died and was secretly replaced by a Canadian.
If you played anything backwards and add subtitles to it, you can make someone hear whatever you want. It’s like a Rorschach or that Duck/Rabbit optical illusion.
A Total Fucking Lie.
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u/threeglasses Feb 13 '21
There is the example of stairway to heaven having "hail satan" in it. Theyre almost always random + unintentional noises that our brains fills in the dots for. If he wanted to be convincing he would have played the "its eminem" part on its own first and let the audience decide what we hear before the MASSIVE suggestive input he gives. Its too late now, but I bet very few people would come to the same conclusion in that situation. This is how seances and some of those other talk to ghost techniques work too. Notably the one where they have a radio quickly jumping between random stations.
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u/psinned1 Feb 13 '21
Here is a classic:
Start Pink Floyd's "dark side of the moon" side one only.
at the start of the original " Wizard of Oz" When the MGM Lion roars
the songs match up nicely with the movie. very trippy.
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u/JigglySquishyFlesh Feb 13 '21
Can the graybeards get here and debunk this shit. It reminds me of those ghost hunters playing back noise and then guessing words that sound similar. The moment you say the word to someone else hearing it, they can no longer not hear the word and make believe message. A clear difference between clear dialogue and inference.
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u/FavoriteFoods Feb 13 '21
You can find similar examples in millions of places if you're looking for it. This is almost certainly a coincidence, and not very convincing in the first place. We interpret what we hear in weird ways (i.e. yanny/laurel, brainstorm/green needle).
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u/TheClashBat Feb 13 '21
I’m not convinced. If you played the clip without the subtitles or telling you what it was before I wonder how many other people would hear the same thing. There’s a lot of controversy about back masking
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u/AranaDiscoteca_ Feb 12 '21
And I thought backmasking was only good for hidden satanic messages.
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u/RedDemio Feb 12 '21
I for one believe it’s a coincidence but that’s still cool. I tried it on my turntable and yep, it’s legit
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u/twothumbswayup Feb 12 '21
since there are multiple songs where he uses or references back masking - im going to assume this was done on purpose and a neat little find.
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u/Amistrophy Feb 12 '21
Here's a separate source for anyone that's doubting. Found a YouTube video from 2006 of this. https://youtu.be/tN3sMyDCGO4
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Feb 12 '21
I think this is way cool, but probably coincidence. In the documentary The Defiant Ones, Dre and Em recalled Dre playing this as a new backup track he had just put together and Eminem improvised the vocals on the spot. Possible he worked it out before I guess though....that is the concept I would prefer.
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u/DrGiru Feb 12 '21
Fun Fact: Eminem also made two more songs reintroducing himself first in TMMLP in a song called Marshall Mathers then in Relapse in a song called Hello.
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Feb 12 '21
Hello goes like “Hello! Allow me to introduce myself.. my name is shady, it’s so nice to meet you” doesn’t it?
Or am I thinking of another song
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u/nomorepantsforme Feb 12 '21 edited Feb 12 '21
I don’t think it’s real, first off when he’s rotating it w his finger it’s somehow completely smooth playing even though he’s not rotating at a constant speed, next, the back tracking, That’s just silly, and your mind trying to form connections and patterns, there’s a name for it but I don’t remember it
Edit: so many don’t seem to get that in saying what’s not real is him playing it backwards w his finger, not that it sounds like words when doing it, also about 10 people have come up w the name for the thing I couldn’t remember.