Iconic Music Video

Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel is and remains to be an iconic music video because of the use of stop motion and animation in the music video. The video was directed by Stephen R Johnson, who has directed other music videos such as Road To Nowhere by Talking Heads as well as Steam by Peter Gabriel which he won a Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video. Stephen R. Johnson also directed short films and the TV series Pee Wee's Playhouse. The music video had the Quay Brothers and Aardman Animations (from Wallace and Gromit) to work the stop motion and animation of the video which gave it its ground breaking success. 

The video stars Peter Gabriel as a man, fruit and play dough all in stop motion animation. In the video there is a direct visual link between the lyrics and what is happening.

Sledgehammer won nine MTV Music awards in 1987, a record which was beaten in 2011. The video won in the following categories; Video of the year, Best male video, Best concept video, Most experimental video, Best overall performance in a video, Best direction in a video, Best special effects in a video, Best art direction in a video, Best editing in a video as well as being awarded the Video Vanguard Award. "The video was number four on MTV's list of the Top 100 of all time. Number 1-3 were; "Thriller," "Vogue," and "Smells Like Teen Spirit”.