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Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer (Patreon)

Published:
2025-08-17 15:00:10
Imported:
2026-06
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HOLY $H!T!

I cannot believe I lived this long hearing only a cover of this song and never knowing that there was an original version out there. To be fair, I didn't actively go out seeking it...

BUT STILL! This was SICK! I still think I was born in the wrong era...

Here's a link to the version I only knew from Ninja Sex Party if you're curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAjLseqz0I0

After reacting, I got curious and did a search...DAVE MATTHEWS DID IT TOO!!! One of my favorite bands and I DIDN'T KNOW!! Here's a good cover of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3_mxY9uvjI

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Comments

P in D

I will apologize in advance for the length of this … RANT, but it has been in my head for a long time. First, please feel free to disagree with me, argue with me … you can even call me fat or old if you’d like :p . Second, this is by no means a critique or criticism of Peter Gabriel as an artist or person. I quite like his music actually. It is however a story that makes me very sad … that ruined the careers of many great musicians and bands … and has led to what we call “music” in the USA today (blech). This video became the benchmark … a yardstick to measure all other music videos that followed. It is the number one most played video on Mtv … EVER. Think back to the mid-eighties if you were around at that time. The closest thing we had to CGI can probably be seen in the DIRE STRAITS video – Money for Nothin’ with the large brightly colored blocky figures and their jerky motions. Sledgehammer, produced with the technology available at the time combined claymation, pixilation, and stop motion animation, and was made frame by painstaking frame at a time. It was very labor intensive and time consuming. For one scene, Gabriel lay under a sheet of glass for 16 hours with raw fish. "It took a lot of hard work," Gabriel recalled. "I was thinking at the time, 'If anyone wants to try and copy this video, good luck to them.'" For each frame of a ten-second sequence, clouds were painted across Gabriel's face to create the illusion of moving clouds, as you could see. Imagine that day at the office … This video led everyone in the music industry on a race to out-do … and more importantly, OUT-SPEND each other. Sledgehammer was such a creation it required actual credits to roll at the end. At the time it cost the producers 100,000 USD to make … which is equal to about 300,000 USD today. Imagine walking into a music executive’s office and telling him you wanted to spend well over a quarter of a million dollars producing a music video. The David Lee Roth video we recently watched for Goin’ Crazy reportedly cost the studio 130,000 USD. Michael Jackson’s Thriller cost over 500,000 USD. Returns were never guaranteed and of course there were flops … and risks. Even Gabriel himself saw less success than anticipated at times. The predecessor to Sledgehammer, Big Time, should have been more successful as it was nearly as big a production with a better sound track if you ask me … and the follow up for this song, Steam, failed to deliver a similar result as I think maybe folks thought “we have seen this before”. Costs were spiraling out of control as interest in Mtv waned. It seemed to lead the industry to some false conclusions about the rock genre overall and gave them the idea that defunding anything to do with the included music was the best course of action. In reality it was a situation they had created themselves and if you have followed NittPiccs guitar greats series you will find many of the super-talented musicians and phenomenal bands who were impacted, and suffered … not to mention us fans, who were left in the balance. Those artists in that timeframe were selected for my selfish reasons. At the same time the industry discovered you could put a few disheveled musicians on stage in ripped up clothes and give them an acoustic guitar … and people would call it a music video - like this was some sort of revelation for the industry. Grunge was born and was easily and cheaply packaged and sold to the masses. Some pop/punk survived, but also died out after a short while despite production costs being much less than a high budget rock video. Of course there was also rap, new to the scene and equally cheap to make … and sell, to a new demographic. The industry loved money, not music … to no one’s surprise. Hard rock was murdered … on purpose. Lots of great music was likely stolen from fans and even sadder, some wonderful careers stolen from what would have been our favorite musicians. You may find people who would claim hard rock had run its course, but I would point to bands we have listened to like Extreme, or Mr. Big, or Living Colour who had the financial backing they needed pulled from them even while they were still in their prime and innovating – they lost not because of anything they did. The industry got what they wanted and spending was greatly reduced … but this was the cost. There had to be a better way. About a year or two ago when we interviewed the Japanese metal band Saiseiga, band management told me the label really needed the hard sell to spend 10,000 USD on the video for Hanabi … way over their budget. My, how times have changed. Maybe someday someone can explain to me the rabid following BAND MAID or The Warning or Rolling Quartz has producing music that harkens back to that time … when talented musicians worked hard to perfect their craft and were rewarded. I honestly can’t listen to much of anything produced in the USA today. What is a Billy Eyelash anyway :p ??? If you want to know why people like Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry are famous, it’s because the industry backed them with money, power, and air time. I stuck mostly to a specific timeframe for my examples. There are obvious omissions but that was done on purpose to make my point. There were LOTS of guitar greats from before the 80’s. Songs were longer and maybe more repetitive … but I don’t think the audience here would be into anything that old from the virtuoso period. I’ll borrow from Google as much as I hate to, but it is a thing … “The virtuoso period of rock music is generally considered to be the 1970s, particularly the early to mid-70s, when progressive rock and hard rock emphasized highly skilled musicianship and complex arrangements. This era saw the rise of bands like Yes, King Crimson, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, who incorporated elements of jazz and classical music into their rock compositions, showcasing intricate instrumental passages and technical prowess.” … I’d add artists like Jeff Beck who was mentioned several times along this journey, Alvin Lee, Peter Frampton, Marc Bolan, Johnny Winter … it is a really long list that does not stop there. They all had careers that ended naturally … and were not truncated by a money-hungry industry … disposed of like trash in favor of the next “best and easiest” thing. I hope others will suggest their favorite guitar artists in the DISCORD … By the way, yes, according to Gabriel the song is about sex.

NittPicc Reacts

This is a good rant! I fall victim to the mainstream artists that are backed by the industry. I cannot lie, but I also call those my “guilty pleasures.” People like what they like and that’s okay. I don’t even stop to think about the costs of making this video. Reading all the information about how this video was made is insane. I wonder what the cost of the video would be today if made with the technology we have today. …but I imagine that level of competition to do something similar to this and the funds it took to create something. I’ve always thought music videos were odd. They are fun to enjoy, but why do we need them? I’m also someone who has a hard time sitting down and watching anything, but listening to something is so much easier for me since I can listen and do something, anything, while listening to music. Being a smaller artist and trying to compete is crazy. And if the artist who gets picked up by a big label, the fans can only hope that their music evolves in their vision and not the industry.

NittPicc Reacts

This is a good rant! I fall victim to the mainstream artists that are backed by the industry. I cannot lie, but I also call those my “guilty pleasures.” People like what they like and that’s okay. I don’t even stop to think about the costs of making this video. Reading all the information about how this video was made is insane. I wonder what the cost of the video would be today if made with the technology we have today. …but I imagine that level of competition to do something similar to this and the funds it took to create something. I’ve always thought music videos were odd. They are fun to enjoy, but why do we need them? I’m also someone who has a hard time sitting down and watching anything, but listening to something is so much easier for me since I can listen and do something, anything, while listening to music. Being a smaller artist and trying to compete is crazy. And if the artist who gets picked up by a big label, the fans can only hope that their music evolves in their vision and not the industry.

Wayne B

I will be short, lol! I really like this song from Peter, but "Big Time" and "Shock the Monkey" are up there for me, too!

Wayne B

The central figure in the video is indeed Peter Gabriel!

Wayne B

Amazing how much music is actually out there, no way to have heard it all! Always fun to find something new!

P in D

Steam? ... go watch Steam ;) . Poor monkey :p .

William Hallisey

This song, while I like it reminds me very much of Buddy Miles's (great rock drummer) "Them Changes". If you don't believe me look it up.

William Hallisey

NittPicc, we old geezers who have heard and seen so many iconic rock bands in our lives can always give you some personal knowledge of groups from the 60's and 70's and expand your insights into the musicians and the music from those eras if you ask us. He'll, I'm 75 and just got back from watching Band-Maid in Japan. I've also seen Cream, The Doors, The Byrds, Led Zeppelin, Johnnie Winter, Rick Derringer, ABB, Devon, and many more iconic rock bands perform live in my youth and followed their stories like all rock fans from those eras. I appreciate the music from all genres from classical, jazz, blues, and rock from all eras. Panic has some valid points on what has taken shape in music productions and the costs that are associated with them from then until now. them

William Hallisey

AI sucks! It Spell checks wvery damned thing and screws up what you're saying. In my earlier comment I said Devo not Devon.

Bill W

Yeah, US was a really good album. "Come Talk To Me", "Digging In The Dirt", "Washing of the Water"....

Bill W

Music videos are a fun exercise/challenge/project for film makers. I used to enjoy them. Now I find, for me, they range from distracting to downright annoying. I haven't really watched any since the very early 90s. The only ones I like now are the ones that just feature the band/artist performing the song. Those work well for reactions so the reactor can see the artist to whom they're being introduced. I wouldn't care for something like THIS ^^ now. I just want to hear the music. Unfortunately, it has become standard practice or even requirement by record labels to demand a certain number of music videos from the artist to promote the album...and I get that. But from a listening standpoint, enjoyment/appreciation of the song shouldn't be dependent on a music video. If it is, that means the song is no good. I recall someone once telling me how great a song was. I asked what it was about....and they proceeded to tell me all the stuff that happened in the video. 🙄🙄(it was one of those 'mini-movie' type videos). So they actually weren't even paying attention to the song.

Bill W

I hear a lot of Ray Charles in Peter's voice and vocalizations, in this song especially, but others as well when he sings in a particular register, and uses certain emphasis. There's a 'wail/cry' quality...a tightness of the throat combined with a hollowness of the mouth. I think. 😀 Two of the 3 horns are Wayne Jackson (trumpet), member of 2 legendary horn sections- The Mar-Keys, (house band at Stax Records who backed Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett etc.), and The Memphis Horns. ..and Mark Rivera (tenor sax), a multi-instrumentalist who was Billy Joel's right-hand man for many years. As for the flute-like sound...although Gabriel does play the flute, it is not listed in the credits. He does however use several different synths on the album. Bass guitar is Tony Levin of King Crimson.

Bill W

I say next up....Talking Heads. Like Gabriel, David Byrne also straddles the threshold between genius and madness. Even a cursory dive into Gabriel's music, you'll find the songs are all brilliant and unique, but at the same time...obviously Peter Gabriel. "Solsbury Hill" "Games Without Frontiers" "Shock The Monkey" "Don't Give Up" "Big Time" "Red Rain" "Digging In The Dirt" "Steam" "Washing of the Water" "Come Talk To Me" "Burn You Up, Burn You Down"

Wayne B

I had kinda forgotten about "Game Without Frontiers", a great tune! I'll have to look into the other PG tracks.

P in D

There is an edit function ... just saying :p .

Glenner7

Want chills? Try Red Rain (or do I mean Biko??)... He was always into interesting visuals - for example, he wore a large tulip costume onstage with Genesis for awhile, among other things. His mother apparently complained that he was so good looking yet hid his face on his album covers (sounds like a mother, doesn't it?).

Sawzar

Nice. When i was a child i liked some of his music. I've always tought that he's quite cool..... If you don't mind check also his duet with Kate Bush, 'Don't give up': I had this song on repeat in my car (along with a bunch of other music in the 90ties...)

Bill W

I edit my comments all the time. I'll comment, then think of something else and add it, then again... it ends up being 3x longer than the original comment. I've done it twice in this comment section alone! 😀

P in D

I want to also say, that at no time did I ever disclose to NittPicc what I was doing ... the "guitar greats" series has birthed some of the best NittPicc reactions ever ... from her first experience with Extreme, to Mr. BIG, to Living Colour, to Satriani ... to name just a couple, these were all top drawer reactions and I think it may have ruined some of the fun had I let on. Thank you NittPicc, for some of the best entertainment I could hope for from the internet. Your genuine joy shines through when we give you music that we love so you can love it too.

Edward Allen

Aardman Animations are well known to most of us for Wallace And Gromit, TV & Film. You absolutely need to react to 'In Your Eyes' live from the Secret World Live tour, the whole concert DVD is brilliant and this song is arguably the highlight https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evN6DIGPIJM

j3ffc

So your folks like Genesis? Peter Gabriel was the first lead singer of that band. The only concert I ever saw from the front row (what you'd now call "the rail") was Genesis, fronted by Gabriel (Phil Collins on drums at that time) performing their concept album "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway". It was quite an experience. Also notable for Sledgehammer is that is one of the many hits co-produced by Daniel Lanois, a terrific talent in his own right. I am one of probably 17 people who bought his first solo album, Acadie. God, I love that record.

Bill W

I'm not a DMB fan, but their version was way better than the other one. Sounded like Dave could have benefitted from tuning it down a half-step or so, but otherwise very good!

Bill W

"The Wrong Trousers" blew me away the first time I saw it.

Jim Lynch

Man I haven't heard this in so many years. Crazy how time flies.