ACRONYM TROUBLE
I Hate Music is no stranger to dodgy acronyms. The lousiness of DMX’s soubriquet has already been given short shrift. All that said – yet another rapper has wandered into the insult padock, with not one but two acronym related issues. Ladies and gentlemen, but ladies in particular because we all love cool James don’t we, I give you LL Cool J. And his new album The GOAT.
Now LL has been in the business for a long time, and he can chat with the best. Even I have to admit that Phenomenon was something like a phenomenon, or at least something like the film Phenomenon – which was a rubbish John Travolta scientology promo. Now I’m not saying that The GOAT is something like – say Battlefield Earth – but it does show a massive misunderstanding of the use of acronyms. You see The GOAT is not actually comparing Mr Cool J with a scrawny mountain dweller. Poor sheep substitute is not the angle LL is after. No, The GOAT is actually an acronym, for the Greatest Of All Time. Greatest what, I hear you ask. Well greatest ninny, or at least nanny (goat joke – cheers). Y’see if you are in the acronym business you want the actual word the acronym makes up to be impressive and symbolic of the actual meaning. So while LL Cool J reckons he is the Greatest Of All Time – we get to see him literally playing the Goat. Surely he could have found a few words that would make up LION.
But of course LL has had problems with abbreviations before. His name causes an infinite regress which has stumped many of the major logicians of our time. LL Cool J – or Ladies Love Cool James. (That’s Cool James, rather than sad, whiney pomp rock James who are all about Coming Home and Sitting Down and copying U2). But as soon as his name has been changed from James to LL Cool J, there is no James for ladies to love. So instead he should now be called LL Cool LL Cool J. This prodcues a second name change – which by inductive reasoning we can see will constantly repeat itself. So the fella has a name reminiscent of Pi, continuing in infinite regress.
Makes it kinda difficult to buy an album by him. Especially if its called The GOAT.