The song sledge hammer was influenced by 1960s soul music, as evident by the use of horns and a general stax sound. The distinctive Horn section was provided by the memphis horns, the house musicians for Stax records. The song also features a synthesized shakuhachi flute.
The lyrics include references such as a steam train, bumper cars, a Big Dipper, roller coaster and a fruit cage. It also includes references to the reproduction of plants, mentioning pollination, fruit and bees.
"Sledgehammer" spawned a widely popular and influential music video directed by Stephen R.Johnson. Aardman animations and the Brothers Quay provided claymation, pixilation, and stop motion animation that gave life to images in the song. The video ended with a large group of extras jerkily rotating around Gabriel, among them: Gabriel's daughters Anna and Melanie, the animators themselves, and director Stephen Johnson's girlfriend. Also included were six women who posed as the back-up singers of the song. Gabriel lay under a sheet of glass for 16 hours while filming the video one frame at a time.
In 1987, it won nine MTV video music awards, a record which still stands as of 2008. It ranked at number four on MTV's 100 Greatest Music Videos Ever Made (1999). MTV later announced that "Sledgehammer" is the most played music video in the history of the station. "Sledgehammer" has also been declared to be MTV's number one animated video of all time.
The video was also voted number seven on TMF's Ultimate 50 Videos You Must See - first aired 24 june 2006. It ranked at number 2 on VH1's "Top 20 Videos of the 80's" as well as being named the (1) "Amazing Moment in Music" on the Australian TV show 20 to 1 in 2007.
The portion of the song featuring the synthesized flute solo was realized in the video by first one and then two oven-ready chickens, headless and featherless, animated using stop-motion. These were animated by Nick Park (of Wallace and Gromit fame) who, at that time was refining his work in plasticine animation.
This video is amazing it couldn't of been any better. it must of taken them ages to create the video taking pictures all the way thru. every frame is eye-catching, i would say his target audience is everyone, who would not love a great video with bright colours and a catchy song to go with it.
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