 Though the backmasking controversy peaked in the 1980s , the general belief in subliminal manipulation became more widespread in the United States during the following decade , with belief in Satanic backmasking on records persisting into the 1990s . At the same time , the development of sound editing software with audio reversal features simplified the process of reversing audio , which previously could only be done with full fidelity using a professional tape recorder . The Sound Recorder utility , included with Microsoft Windows from Windows 95 to Windows XP , allows one @-@ click audio reversal , as does popular open source sound editing software Audacity . Following the growth of the Internet , backmasked message searchers used such software to create websites featuring backward music samples , which became a widely used method of exploring backmasking in popular music . 
