Origin

Background

The movie This Is Spinal Tap was made to be a humorous mockumentary of rock n' roll culture. To this day it is considered to be one of the greatest films in rock history. Throughout the movie the characters portray the stereotypical image of rock stars: Idiots who have absolutely no clue what they are doing. The scene This one goes to 11 is one of the most remembered scenes from the movie and the most famous. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines These go to 11 as "Up to maximum volume." The phrase go to 11 can also be found in Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock. Microsoft also acknowledged Spinal Tap saying that windows media player now goes to 11. Guitar center on their website uses the phrase These go up to 11 on amps that have the 11th volume setting. Van Halen was inspired to change their amps to 11's because of Spinal Tap. The band Spinal Tap was nominated for a grammy for best comedy album.

Other memorable spinal tap scenes

Full Guitar room scene

Hotel

Solos

Stonehenge

Collection of

Derivatives

Lego Spinal Tap

South Park style

IRL

Harry Shearer aka Derek Smalls on SNL

At the Freddy Mercury tribute concert

Metallica interrogated by Spinal Tap

Interview on GMA in 92

National Geographic special

20*11* on GMA

Further example of the phrase on the interweb

Movie/Music review site

Random Spinal Tap facts site

Some homeschooling site

In TF2 the taunt attack for Medic with the ubersaw is called Spinal Tap

Cheezburger.com has a Memebase forum called " This is Photobomb." A spin of of the title of the movie, "This is Spinal Tap"