Music has been used in psychological operations. The term music torture is sometimes used by critics of the practice of playing loud music incessantly to prisoners or people besieged.
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The United Nations and the European Court of Human Rights have banned the use of loud music in interrogations. The term torture is sometimes used to describe the practice. While it is acknowledged by US interrogation experts that it causes discomfort, it has also been characterized by them as causing no "long-term effects".
Music and sound have been usually used as part of a combination of interrogation methods, today recognized by international bodies as amounting to torture. Attacking all senses without leaving any visible traces, they have formed the basis of the widely discussed torture in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. They were, however, devised much earlier in the 1950s and early 1960s, as a way to counter so-called Soviet "brainwashing". They include:
United States
"These people haven't heard heavy metal. They can't take it. If you play it for 24 hours, your brain and body functions start to slide, your train of thought slows down and your will is broken. That's when we come in and talk to them."
"W[itness] observed sleep deprivation interviews w/strobe lights and loud music. Interrogator said it would take 4 days to break someone doing an interrogation 16 hrs w/lights and music on and 4 hrs off. Handwritten note next to typed synopsis says "ok under DoD policy".
"Rumors that interrogator bragged about doing lap dance on d[etainee], another about making d[etainee] listen to satanic black metal music for hours then dressing as a Priest and baptizing d[etainee] to save him - handwritten note says 'yes'."
"W[itness] saw d[etainee] in interview room sitting on floor w/Israeli flag draped around him, loud music and strobe lights. W suspects this practice is used by DOD DHS based on who he saw in the hallway."
"The physical tactics noted by the Red Cross included placing detainees in extremely cold rooms with loud music blaring, and forcing them to kneel for long periods of time, the source familiar with the report said."
Iraq
According to Amnesty International:
"Detainees have reported being routinely subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment during arrest and detention. Many have told Amnesty International that they were tortured and ill-treated by US and UK troops during interrogation. Methods often reported include prolonged sleep deprivation; beatings; prolonged restraint in painful positions, sometimes combined with exposure to loud music; prolonged hooding; and exposure to bright lights. Virtually none of the allegations of torture or ill-treatment has been adequately investigated by the authorities."
Israel
On January 12, 1998 the Supreme Court of Israel declined to ban the use of loud music as an interrogation technique.
Greece
According to recent research, the Greek military Junta (1967–1974) used the above-mentioned combination of interrogation techniques, including music. This took place in the headquarters of the Special Interrogation Unit of Greek Military Police (EAT/ESA), Athens. New interviews with survivors, held there in 1973, talk about the use of songs, popular hits of the time: these were played loudly and repeatedly from loudspeakers as the detainee had to stand without rest, food, drink or sleep.
Popular culture
In the book A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess and the subsequent film based upon it, a rebellious teenager is subjected to brutal experimental brain-washing techniques that as an accidental side-effect cause him to feel physical pain if he has similar violent thoughts to those that sent him to jail in the first place.
In Back to the Future, Marty used music made by Van Halen to scare his dad, George McFly, awake, implying that since that kind of music did not exist in that time, it would scare him.
In Apocalypse Now, a helicopter squadron plays classical music, Richard Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries, over loudspeakers on-board their helicopters while attacking a Viet Cong village, as a form of psychological warfare.
In The Drew Carey Show, Mimi played "Panama" by Van Halen repeatedly to drive Drew and friends from his house.
In an episode of the U.S. television show Burn Notice Sam Axe plays loud music to a prisoner to break his will.
In the film The Men Who Stare at Goats, a take-off of the Barney & Friends ending song "I Love You" is played in the cells of Iraqi detainees as a form of torture.
In the TV series Homeland, Grindcore is used to keep a prisoner awake.
In Power Rangers Megaforce, Emma sings a song to help the rangers defeat Dischord.
In the series 'Lost', pop music is used to keep an islanders boyfriend awake and indoctrinated and tortured.
In one episode of 'The Flash' Cisco plays 'Never Gonna Give You Up' on repeat to Hartley get him to reveal information they need.
Public awareness of the use of this technique is widespread enough that it can be used in satirical attacks on popular culture:
"Hollywood — Several days after Paris Hilton announced that she will release a music album, the Pentagon has decided to buy 50,000 copies of her upcoming album to use against insurgents in the volatile Anbar province in western Iraq."
In the TV series American Horror Story, in the second season titled Asylum, the song "Dominique" is played constantly for the asylum patients in the episode "Welcome to Briarcliff".
In the TV series "The Walking Dead", the song "Easy Street" by "The Collapsable Hearts Club" is played repeatedly to Daryl Dixon in order to torture him.
Royalty payments
The Guardian reported that the US military may owe royalty payments to the artists whose works were played to the captives.
Musicians' protests
On 9 December 2008 the Associated Press reported that various musicians were coordinating their objections to the use of their music as a technique for softening up captives through an initiative called Zero dB. Zero dB is an initiative against music torture set up by legal charity Reprieve, which represents over thirty prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. Zero dB aims to stop torture music by encouraging widespread condemnation of the practice and by calling on governments and the UN to uphold and enforce the Convention Against Torture and other relevant treaties. The initiative is backed by the Musicians Union which is calling on British musicians to voice their outrage against the use of music to torture.
Musicians and the wider public are making their own silent protests against music torture which are being shown on Zero dB. A series of silent protests and actions are planned through 2009. Participating musicians will include minutes of silence in their concerts to draw their audience's attention to the USA's use of deafening music against captives.
According to the Associated Press FBI agents stationed at Guantanamo Bay reported that the use of deafening music was common. According to the Associated Press Guantanamo Bay spokesmen Commander Pauline Storum:
Among the musicians united in their objections were Christopher Cerf, a composer for the children's show Sesame Street, and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. Others include Massive Attack, R.E.M., The Roots, Rise Against, Rosanne Cash, Pearl Jam, Bonnie Raitt, Trent Reznor, Billy Bragg, Michelle Branch, Jackson Browne, T-Bone Burnett, David Byrne, Marc Cohn, Steve Earle, the Entrance Band, Skinny Puppy and Joe Henry.
The Associated Press reported that Stevie Benton of the group Drowning Pool commented:
On December 13, 2008, Benton issued an apology on the band's MySpace page about his comment on musical torture, stating his comment had been "taken out of context".