Up to eleven

File:Xone92-eleven.jpg

Allen & Heath XONE:92 DJ mixer headphone volume control goes up to eleven

"Up to eleven" or "these go to eleven" is an idiom from popular culture which has come to refer to anything being exploited to its utmost abilities, or apparently exceeding them, such as a sound volume control. Similarly, the expression "turning it up to eleven" may refer to the act of taking something to an extreme. In 2002 the phrase entered the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary with the definition "up to maximum volume."

The phrase was coined in a scene from the 1984 mockumentary/rockumentary This Is Spinal Tap by the character Nigel Tufnel, played by Christopher Guest. Since the debut of the movie, manufacturers have actually numbered some things to eleven, but the idea was originally created in the making of the movie script. In this scene Nigel gives the rockumentary's director, Marty DiBergi, played by Rob Reiner, a tour of his stage equipment. While Nigel is showing Marty his Marshall guitar amplifiers, he points out one in particular whose control knobs all have the highest setting of eleven (this is a prop and unlike standard amplifiers, whose volume settings are typically numbered from zero to ten), believing that this numbering actually increases the volume of the amp ("It's one louder."). When Marty asks why the ten setting is not simply set to be louder, Nigel pauses, clearly confused, before responding, "These go to eleven".

Usage in culture

• Compuware Corporation released a version 11 of their Vantage software solution with a marketing campaign based on a "Turn it up to 11" reference.

• BBC iPlayer - the web based player's volume control goes up to 11.

• Episode 45 of the first season of Pokemon, "The Song of Jigglypuff," James from Team Rocket tells Ash to turn the amps jigglypuff is singing through up to 11.

• Some amplifiers did feature a scale that extended beyond ten. Between the years of 1949 and 1964, the Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company produced the Fender Champ which had volume settings ranging from one to twelve.

• Klotz has produced P/A amplifiers with volume controls marked from zero to eleven. At the product presentation Klotz quoted the famous sentence from "This is Spinal Tap".

• The Vortexion 4/15M mixer made famous by Joe Meek had four large volume controls marked from zero to eleven. An image of this model of mixer appears on the cover of "Blacker" by Radio Massacre International.

• Marshall Amplification introduced the JCM900 amplifier in 1990 with knobs going to twenty. Christopher Guest, playing Nigel Tufnel, participated in the marketing for this amplifier; appearing at the publicity party for the product as well as in magazine advertisements. His catch phrase on the print advertising was "That's nine more, innit?". Nigel claimed to also have a special model that goes to infinity, with the knob spinning around and around as though it's broken.

• In the Toy Story 2 scene where Buzz Lightyear confronts Zerg on top of the elevator, the power controller on Zerg's back is numbered from 1 to 11.

• In July 2006, Microsoft.com featured a promo for Windows Media Player 11 that said to "Turn it up to 11" and pictured the WMP 11 Play button surrounded by numbers and tick marks, making it into a dial that ends at 11.

• Roku media hubs have volume sliders that go to 11.

• In the game Guitar Hero, during the load screen before each playable song, a randomly selected message is displayed on an animated amplifier. While the player waits for the song to load, the controls on the animated amp move up in succession, ending at 11, in reference to Nigel's amp. One of the random messages also reads, "Eleven IS louder than ten." In Neversoft's opening cinematic in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, the guitarist turns his amp that goes up to eleven, but the number 11 is covered with a sticky note reading 12. In all Guitar Hero games, the audio option slidebars all have a scale of one to eleven.

• In the episode "The Lazarus Experiment" of Doctor Who the Tenth Doctor can be heard saying "We need to turn this up to 11" as he uses his Sonic Screwdriver to increase the volume of the church organ he is playing in order to defeat the mutated Professor Richard Lazarus.

• Dr Gregory House of the eponymous American medical drama has referenced going to eleven on no fewer than three occasions. In the episode entitled "TB or Not TB", he asks if the control for the tilt table goes up to eleven. In "Informed Consent", when making a 71 year old run on a treadmill, he comments "We're turning that dial all the way to 11", and uses similar phrasing in "Words and Deeds" in reference to electroshock therapy: "...and we'll crank the dial to 11".

• Beck included the lyric, "Boyz / Turning jams up to eleven" on "Boyz", a song recorded for the 2000 compilation, At Home With the Groovebox.

• Swedish band Blindside has a song titled "Pretty Nights" that includes the lyrics "Who touched the volume knob / Has it always been this loud ... Does this one go to eleven?"

• The song "Time Enough for Rocking When We're Old" by The Magnetic Fields has the lyric, "There'll be time for sex and drugs in Heaven/When our pheromones are turned up to eleven."

• In an episode of Good Eats with Alton Brown, Alton is demonstrating a toaster to a fictional documentary producer. He says it should have 6 or 7 browning settings. His intern says that he made one that goes to 11. When the producer asked why he didn't just make 10 higher, he exclaims, "But, it goes to eleven!"

• In commercials for Kidz Bop 11, the announcer exclaims "Watch Out Kids! This One Goes To Eleven!"

• The now defunct video game publisher Working Designs had "Our games go to 11!" as their slogan.

• In an issue of the New Musical Express, there was a feature called "This One Goes To Eleven: the loudest songs of all time", which were rated out of eleven for loudness, complete with an amp dial pointing to the correct number.

• Southern California band A Static Lullaby has a song titled "We Go To Eleven" on their 2003 album ...And Don't Forget to Breathe.

• New Jersey band The Smithereens issued a CD in 1989 titled "11" -- actually only their third full length album. Toward the end of the CD booklet is printed a list of their previous releases followed by the phrase, "but this one goes to eleven..."

• The song "Better Days (And the Bottom Drops Out)" by Citizen King includes the lyric, "Crank it to eleven / blow another speaker".

• The Big and Rich song Loud has a line in its chorus: "The party wont be revin' till we crank it to eleven"

• Knoxville-based rock band Superdrag opens their "Last Call for Vitriol" release with a song titled, "Baby Goes to Eleven".

• The volume sliders for all audio and video players on the online version of BBC, including those on its news division and the iPlayer sites, go from 0 to 11.

• The video game Spore features a "weapon" for space vehicles that is a set of four loudspeakers named "Goes to 11".

• In the episode Corporal Punishment of the TV Series NCIS Tony Dinozzo says while interrogating a suspect "crank the amp up to eleven."

• In the 2008 movie Role Models up to eleven is also mentioned.

• In the expansion pack to the PC MMORPG World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King, there is a quest in Howling Fjord (alliance) named "It goes to 11..."

• The Powerpuff Girls: Bubblevicious / The Bare Facts Bubbles is trying to be "hard core" and takes the laser all the way to 11 (includes "close up" of dial set to 11).

• In the animated television show Home Movies as shown in the season 2 episode "Pizza Party", the character Dwayne has an amp in which the volume control goes only up to 10, but 11 is handwritten at the end of the dial.

• In the British stop-motion animated show Shaun the Sheep in episode Hiccups Shaun brings a Stratocaster-like guitar and Marshall-like amplifier which he then turns to eleven.

• In the Wii video game Pokémon Battle Revolution, at some point after a Pokémon is defeated, the announcer will proclaim that "the energy in the Colosseum has turned up to eleven!".

• In the animated tv show ReBoot as shown in the first season episode "Talent Night", the character Megabyte has an amp that he turns up to eleven.

• In the 2003 comic book cross-over JLA/Avengers, as Thor can't believe Superman is able to pick up Mjolnir, claims "...not the strongest in nine worlds...", to which Superman replies "Looks like in my world, the dial goes up to eleven!"

See also

• Loudest band in the world
• Loudness war
• Spinal Tap