Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer

What this video is

Released in April 1986 as the lead single from Peter Gabriel's landmark album So, 'Sledgehammer' arrived at the apex of MTV's cultural dominance, when the music video had become the primary vehicle for pop stardom. The video transformed Gabriel from a cult progressive-rock figure into a mainstream international star, demonstrating how high-concept visual production could reposition an artist's entire commercial…

Why it matters

A defining artifact of the art-pop/blue-eyed soul era, 'Sledgehammer' established the music video as a legitimate experimental art form, not merely a promotional tool. It holds the all-time record of nine MTV VMA wins from a single video and has been declared MTV's most-played video in the…

The director

Stephen Russell Johnson (July 12, 1952 – January 26, 2015) was an American music video director, television director, animator, painter, and writer. He studied at Kansas University and USC, where he made award-winning stop-motion films. He directed three…