Pump Up the Valuum

Production

The album's title deliberately misspells the trademark "Valium" to avoid a lawsuit, similar to the one The Melvins faced for their album Lysol. This is explained in the 45 Or 46 Songs... album booklet.

The initial song, "And Now for Something Completely Similar," is a parody of the famous saying "And Now for Something Completely Different" from Monty Python skits. As a prank, the intro sounds very similar to "Linoleum" from the band's 1994 album Punk in Drublic, right down to El Hefe warming up his voice before the song begins, while the solo bass part echoes Shadows of Defeat from Good Riddance. Both similarities are addressed in the song's lyrics.

The song "Dinosaurs Will Die" features a part of the intro skit from The F.U.'s song "Civil Defense" off the album 'Kill For Christ'. Surprisingly, the words which are spoken during this intro ("This is not a test of the emergency broadcast system") also appear in the Bad Religion song "Los Angeles Is Burning", on their 2004 album "The Empire Strikes First".

All of the vinyl copies of this record were colored blue.

According to Fat Mike, "...the title track 'Pump Up the Valuum' got cut from the album. That's weird. We gave it to Epitaph for Punk O Rama 5." Three other songs were mentioned in the Pump Up the Valuum booklet as songs that didn't make it to this record, but that will be in upcoming ones:

1. Medio-core (later in The War on Errorism, 2003)
2. Insulted By Germans (later in 7" of the Month #1, 2005, and Wolves In Wolves' Clothing, 2006)
3. One Way Ticket to Fuckneckville (later in Aggropop Now 2003, The War on Errorism, and 7" of the Month #7, 2005)

Other outtakes include "Pods and Gods", "Lower", "Bath of Least Resistance", "San Francisco Fat", and "Pump Up the Valium"..

Critical reception

In 2005, Pump Up the Valuum was ranked number 331 in Rock Hard magazine's book of The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time. The album was included at number 17 on Rock Sound's "The 51 Most Essential Pop Punk Albums of All Time" list.

Track listing

All tracks written by Fat Mike.

Personnel