In 1986, Peter Gabriel released a music video unlike almost anything viewers had seen before. Forty years later, the groundbreaking clip has just earned another No. 1 ranking, though this particular honor is less about what appeared on screen than what Gabriel endured to make it.
BBC Music Magazine ranked Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” No. 1 on its new list of the 13 Biggest Video Nightmares, beating famously elaborate videos from Foo Fighters, Duran Duran, The Police, Guns N’ Roses, A-ha, Elton John, Michael Jackson and more.
And anyone who remembers the surreal, occasionally unsettling “Sledgehammer” video might find the word “nightmare” especially appropriate.
Directed by Stephen R. Johnson, the video used stop-motion, clay animation and pixilation to transform Gabriel and the world around him one painstaking frame at a time. Aardman Animations and the Brothers Quay were among the artists involved in creating its unforgettable imagery.
But making all that visual magic required an extraordinary amount of patience from Gabriel.
BBC Music Magazine reports that the singer spent 16 hours lying beneath a sheet of glass as he was photographed frame by frame. Every movement of his face required another setup, while the artists surrounding him continually repositioned objects to create the stop-motion sequences.
“Few videos demanded more sheer physical endurance,” the magazine said of the production, describing the process as “punishing.”
Gabriel later had a succinct piece of advice for anyone tempted to try something similar: “Good luck.”
The ordeal certainly paid off.
“Sledgehammer,” released in April 1986 as the lead single from Gabriel’s blockbuster album So, became the biggest American hit of his solo career. The song reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July 1986, knocking “Invisible Touch” by his former band Genesis out of the top spot.
Remarkably, “Sledgehammer” and “Invisible Touch” would be the only No. 1 Hot 100 hits for Gabriel and Genesis, respectively.
But the “Sledgehammer” video became arguably even more famous than the song itself.
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At the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards, it won a record nine awards. Gabriel also won Best British Video for “Sledgehammer” at the Brit Awards, while the song earned Grammy nominations for Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Male Rock Vocal Performance.
Its reputation didn’t fade when the MTV era did. In a 2005 Channel 4 poll, “Sledgehammer” was ranked the No. 2 greatest pop video, while a 2011 TIME article said it was MTV’s most-played music video of all time.
The song marked a commercial high point for Gabriel, who was 36 when it was released. After co-founding Genesis in the late 1960s and serving as the band’s flamboyant lead singer, Gabriel left the group in 1975 and launched his solo career.
By the time So arrived in 1986, he had already established himself as an adventurous solo artist. The album transformed him into an international superstar, with “Sledgehammer” becoming its biggest hit.
Four decades later, the video’s dancing chickens, fruit-covered face, animated furniture and other bizarre images remain instantly recognizable.
Now “Sledgehammer” has another distinction to add to its unusually long list of accolades: the No. 1 spot on BBC Music Magazine’s ranking of pop’s biggest video nightmares.
Considering Gabriel spent 16 hours trapped beneath glass to make it, that one may have been earned the hard way.
Related: ’70s Rockers Shockingly Just Named No. 2 ‘Greatest Band of All Time,’ Beating Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones
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