Alexandra Wells

The final music video that I am analysing is ‘Sledgehammer’ by Peter Gabriel and was directed by Stephen R. Johnson.

Although this music video is clearly seen to be made from stop motion animation, it still belongs to the pop genre due to the upbeat and catchy song that goes with it. This video isn’t stereotypical due to the stop motion side of it and how the camera angle more or less stays the same apart from some vague close ups and extreme close ups of Peter Gabriel at the beginning of the music video. Although it is common for the artist to be the centre of attention in a pop music video, the target audience isn’t usually drawn to the artist in this particular way. Usually the artist is somewhat sexualised and gazed at by the audience; however, Peter Gabriel isn’t portrayed as a typical pop music artist in this way.

The relationship between the visuals and lyrics are very illustrative. This is depicted through “I want to be your sledgehammer” while the visual of a sledgehammer being destructive appears on-screen. To further show this illustration, when Peter Gabriel sings the line, “You could have an aeroplane flying, if you bring your blue sky back”, a paper aeroplane is actually “flying” around on-screen while the background and even Peter Gabriel’s face is painted blue and white. As well as just these two examples, there are many more that confirm this. When “you could have a big dipper” is sung, peter Gabriel is shown on-screen, with a blackboard behind him with roller coaster tracks drawn on it, and looks strapped down like you would be during a roller coaster ride. The whole music video appears to come from the lyrics themselves.

The relationship between the music and visuals is strong due to the fact that the editing of the stop motion matches the pace of the music. The music video itself may not make much sense, however, the pace and catchiness of the song eliminates that and gets the audience focusing on the rhythm and beat of what’s happening on-screen.

This music video doesn’t involve any elements of the notion of looking due to the fact that the camera is always focused on Peter Gabriel and the stop motion elements are a big part of it. For a pop music video, this is unusual as the artist is usually objectified in some way.

Peter Gabriel signed a record deal with many record labels, the most popular ones being Atlantic Records, and Atco (which is owned by Warner Music group.) Peter Gabriel had his first hit with his single ‘Solsbury hill’, which gained over 3 million views on YouTube and enabled him to work his way

Alexandra Wells

up to produce ‘sledgehammer’ and worked with animator Stephen R. Johnson and Aardman Animations to make the music video for it.

From what I can see, there aren’t any obvious intertextual references due to the stop motion side of the video. Aardman Animations created the stop motion effects within the music video and this makes it unique in its own way. This shows that this video isn’t stereotypical for the pop genre as pop videos don’t usually include stop motion or animated effects.

To conclude, this music video is a pop music video, it just isn’t stereotypically seen as one. This can be portrayed through the bright colours of the clay-mation and how they edit clearly together. Due to this, this music video is strongly concept-based, although at the end it can be seen as performance-based, which supports the fact that there is a lack of the male gaze concept.