I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I'm wondering where you would be able to see the blacklist, if it's publicly viewable? I'm not sure if it's a thing that only mods can view, or if it's something that forum users can also look at if they want to check whether or not a band has been blacklisted first before making an appeal thread.

The blacklist is only visible for mods.
If you try to submit a band, there will be an orange box with a warning telling you the band is blacklisted. That's how you check if a band is blacklisted before making an appeal

There used to be an old post on here where a mod posted a list of all the blocked bands round about 2008ish, it was funny to read cause you had some stuff like 'Britney Spears' show up, would be nice to know why bands were rejected though.

Well, that's exactly what the appeals forum is there for.

So, I guess if I wanna know why a band's been blacklisted, just ask in the appeal forum?

Certainly, but you shuld read the guidelines for the forum first, just to know, how to ask properly. You shuld also limit your question to only several bands per week.
Here:
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=123865

Thanks for clarifying

Def good advice... "Certainly, but you shuld read the guidelines for the forum first, just to know, how to ask properly."..... something I should have done when I asked about a band the other day, first time in asking in the forums with the (new) set-up, and I was corrected in how I did that.