Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer

Peter Gabriel's Animated Music Videos

Peter Gabriel is an English musician who's been active since 1967. I'm a big fan of his 80s work because that was when he came out with the album "So". The album features Sledgehammer, the song "In Your Eyes" from the movie with the guy holding the boombox over his head and "Red Rain" that always makes me think of vampires because that is how my brain works.

Sledgehammer

It earned its accolades.

The video opens with the biology of life. Then superzooms on Peter Gabriel in stop motion. He's animated while singing the song. The person in charge of timing did a fantastic job. It moves through many different phases of imagery.

1. 
   Train
2. Paper Airplane
3. Blue Sky and Clouds
4. Bullhorn
5. Rollercoaster
6. Bumper Cars
7. Ice
8. Fish
9. Banana
10. Fruit
11. Flowers
12. Box/Work Table
13. Plasticine Peter
14. Fertilization
15. Yin and Yang
16. Fish
17. Water Pillar
18. Abstraction
19. Egg
20. Dancing Chickens
21. Animating People

They animate him interacting with bumper cars. A few scenes replace him with ice, fruit and clay. The floor in the later minute of the video has a green grid on the white floor. The grid helped them track the movements the dancers and the objects made.

Other than Sledgehammer

I'm not going to get into Peter Gabriel's back catalog of music because that's not the point. I like his music and I'll leave it at that. Also, I'm in a place emotionally where I keep feeling songs in a really deep place...so, I'll stick to talking about the visuals and set aside discussion of the music. I'll leave it at this. I'm a fan.

MTV rewarded ridiculous creativity and style. You couldn't replay a clip, you couldn't save it and you couldn't share it. A lot of music videos were conceived to stick in your mind after seeing it once.

Behind the Video

Stephen R. Johnson directed Pee-Wee's Playhouse. He also directed Big Time and Steam for Peter Gabriel and Road to Nowhere for the Talking Heads. 

The work of Aardman Animations is gorgeous. It's the best part of the video.

Road to Nowhere - Talking Heads

Stephen R. Johnson also directed Road to Nowhere for the Talking Heads. For about 12 seconds, we get a glimpse of the concept of Sledgehammer with the lead singer sitting still while the things animate around him.

Big Time - Peter Gabriel

I would recommend this video for the creative imagery and the experimental mediums.

I see flavors of Pee-Wee's Playhouse in the production design. There are moments that callback to Sledgehammer. The stop motion animation is more ambitious. Overall, the video is disparate images and different ideas strung together with interspersed shots of Peter Gabriel performing the song. It's an "and then there was..." video. 

Sledgehammer flows together a little more. It doesn't have as many ideas and they transition a little bit better. But aside from the literal sledgehammers in Sledgehammer, both relate to their song about equally and this is fine.

Steam

I would recommend this video to anyone interested in early computer animation. It's very of the era and gives me flashbacks to Tomb Raider and Sims. It's interesting. The scenes work a little better than the previous videos. Unfortunately early 90s computer animation aged like milk in 90 degree weather.