History of satanic rock 6

Despite the fact that almost none of these bands
ever sold as many records as a lukewarm
Captain and Tennille album, the phenomenon
was taken very seriously by the media and
churches; the 1980's weren't the 1960's. The
conservative 80's saw a bizarre anti-Satanic
grassroots wellspring, which ultimately became
one of the great witch hunts (literal) of the last
couple of hundred years. Using "recovered
memory therapy", stories of ritual satanic abuse
and sacrifice wound up circulating on TV talk
shows; if all of the accusations had been correct,
satanic ritual sacrifice was the #3 killer of
Americans in the US, ahead of homicide and just
behind cancer and heart disease. Yet, no cadre of
ritual sacrificers were found, no evidence, no
bodies.
While these accusations and the methods that
brought out these "memories" have since been
discredited (after ruining numerous lives of the
unjustly accused), they helped to illustrate what a
powerful signifier satanism is in the imaginations
of the simplest of people; as a result, satanic rock
didn't just not go away, it once again entered the
mainstream; Motley Crue had a huge seller with
Shout at The Devil. Slayer incorporated a
pentagram into their logo. The Christian rock act
Stryper became something of the anti-Satanic
metal band, tossing bibles to the audience.
The suicides of some rock listeners after listening
to albums by Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne
helped lend the PMRC some muscle, which
played a hand in getting their rating stickers on
CD's. During the witch-hunt years, back-masking,
the technique of recording subliminal messages
backwards on an album, gained attention. At first,
it was claimed that "Stairway to Heaven" played
backwards concealed Satanic exhortations. Then
other songs, until, perhaps as an example of how
the anti-Satanists were truly grasping at straws, it
was announced that the theme to the TV series
"Mr. Ed" also hid a Satanic message.
Naturally, some bands decided to try this
gimmick after hearing these stories. However,
psychology has never accepted backwards
masking as a way of instilling a subliminal
suggestion; brains don't process backwards
sounds very well.
Part IV: Satanism in rock today
Marilyn Manson
Today, rock audiences are a little more
sophisticated than they once were, and it takes
more to shock. Marilyn Manson was rumored to
be a minister in the Church of Satan, and persued
a shock agenda, which included his choice of
stage name. Rob Zombie is another dabbler in
luciferian imagery. However, after the Sept. 11,
2001 terrorist attacks, there seems to have been
yet another waning in Satanic concerns
(suggesting that Satanism may be the pastime of
the idle middle-class; when survival becomes an
issue, Satanism suddenly loses its allure).