Finding secret messages — in the lyrics of pop music, backwards-masked on album tracks, sneaked into the background of songs, and even hidden on record covers and labels — has been a favorite pastime of ours for a few decades now.

The Allman Brothers Band:
The Allman Brothers Band's album title Eat a Peach is a reference to Duane Allman's fatal motorcycle accident.

The Beatles:
The Beatles hid "Paul is dead" clues in their albums and songs.*
The Beatles created the infamous butcher cover as a protest against Capitol Records' "butchery" of their music.
The title Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was chosen because its initial letters form the acrostic L-S-D.
The Beatles recorded songs entitled "Colliding Circles," "Left Is Right (And Right Is Wrong)," "Pink Litmus Paper Shirt," and "Deck Chair," which remain unreleased to this day.
The back of an early Beatles album contains a risqué mistake.

The Byrds:
The Byrds replaced a recently-fired David Crosby with a picture of a horse on an album cover.
Columbia Records mistakenly released a Byrds album without a title.

The Doors:
The title of the Doors song "Five to One" refers to the ratio of Viet Cong to American troops in Vietnam.

Electric Light Orchestra:
ELO's debut album was mistakenly retitled No Answer when released in America.

Gaye, Marvin:
Ordered by a judge to hand over all the profits from his next album to his ex-wife as part of a divorce settlement, singer Marvin Gaye deliberately recorded a wretched album designed to sell poorly, which he sardonically entitled Here, My Dear.

Jackson, Michael:
Michael Jackson's phone number can be found in the UPC code on his Thriller album.

KISS:
The group KISS took their name from an acronym for 'Knights in Satan's Service.'

Ohio Players:
The Ohio Players' song Love Rollercoaster includes the scream of a woman murdered in the studio.

* Entries marked with an asterisk will display in a separate browser window.