Resilient music-lovers living in Soviet-era Russia were up against two obstacles when trying to enjoy Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, or other popular musicians of that time: banned music and a shortage of vinyl due to World War II. Their solution, as NPR recently reported, was to create recordings of banned Western music on discarded X-ray films.
The end result is as visually impressive as the idea is ingenious. József Hajdu, a photographer from Hungary, thought so as well and began photographing the X-ray music records. He first discovered them while working at a museum in his native Hungary.
The process for creating this records, it turns out, was fairly simple. X-rays were collected from the archives and waste bins outside hospitals and then the recordings were pressed onto the radiographs using minimal tools and materials. They were then hand cut to resemble the size and shape of a traditional vinyl record. What was left were bootleg recordings of various rock ‘n’ roll and jazz songs imprinted over images of skeletal feet, skulls, hands, and ribcages.
You can read more about the history and process of recording on X-rays here.