This amusement never ends!
Tell me how have you been?
"Sledgehammer" is a song written and recorded by rock musician Peter Gabriel, released as the lead single for his 1986 album So. The single was released on 21 April 1986, four weeks before the album itself.
It was inspired by 60's soul music. In the summer of 1986, it shot up to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, incidentally succeeding his former band Genesis' only #1 hit "Invisible Touch". It would peak at #4 on the UK Pop chart, and was a Top 10 hit virtually everywhere else around the world. The single itself was certified Gold by the UK Official Charts Company on 400,000 units sold.
A music video was also commissioned, done by Aardman Animations and involving claymation and stop motion footage. The video became a staple on MTV—to the point where Gabriel himself asked that they stop playing it. It dominated the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards, winning nine of the ten Moonmen it was nominated for, including Video of the Year.note It remains to date the award show's highest number of awards for a single video.
This is the new stuff I go troping in:
- Animated Music Video: Commissioned by Aardman Animations and directed by Stephen R. Johnson, it makes use of claymation and stop motion. Gabriel selected Johnson specifically because he had also directed Talking Heads' "Road to Nowhere", which also used stop-motion animation the year before this album came out. "Big Time" would also receive this treatment later in the year.
- Dance Party Ending: The music video culminates in a scene where Gabriel dances with multiple woman in a suburban living room, with shots alternating between stop motion and extremely limited framerate that mimics the look of stop motion.
- In the Style of: The music is an intentional nod to 60's soul, with Gabriel specifically citing Otis Redding as the song's driving influence.
- Intercourse with You: Gabriel admitted that the song's essentially an extended booty call, tying in with the sexually-charged lyrics throughout the 60's soul music that it homages.
- Minimalistic Cover Art: The single release's cover is simply a blurry photo of a swinging sledgehammer against a solid white backdrop, punctuated only by the artist and song logotypes in the corner.
- Out-of-Genre Experience: By 1986, Gabriel was primarily known for post-progressive music with heavy influences from World Music and Post-Punk, and indeed that style carries over to most of So. This song meanwhile is a 60's soul throwback; Gabriel would only revisit the style once, on 1992's "Steam".
- Shapeshifter Weapon: At one point, a clay Peter Gabriel's hands are transformed into sledgehammers.
- Shout-Out: The video's style was directly inspired by a scene from Talking Heads' "Road to Nowhere", albeit encompassing the entire clip instead of a single shot. Both videos even feature the same director, hand-picked by Gabriel.
- Stop Motion: One of the methods used for the video courtesy of Aardman Animations. The first three scenes involve Gabriel laying below a sheet of glass for sixteen hours and taking several shots, adding in the various effects. Even towards the end where Gabriel dances with an entourage behind him, it was shot in this manner with various objects also moving around in this manner.
- Surreal Music Video: The animated nature of it allows for offbeat moments to occur all around, from the scenery and props changing according to the lyrics to spawning two dancing raw chickens.
