Sledgehammer

Sledgehammer

Featured in Episode	"Better Living Through Chemistry"
Artist(s)	Peter Gabriel
Top Chart Position (Hot 100)	1 (July 26, 1986, one week)
Year Released	1986
Album	So
Writer(s)	Peter Gabriel
RIAA Certification	NONE
Sequence song appears	Playing in bar
Previous Song	"Tequila"
Next Song	"Movin' and Groovin'"

"Sledgehammer" is a song by Peter Gabriel, featured on the album So in 1986 and released as a single in April of that year. It appeared in the Miami Vice episode "Better Living Through Chemistry".

Notes[]

"Sledgehammer" is the third of five songs from Peter Gabriel's album So to appear in Miami Vice -- the others being "Red Rain", "Mercy Street", "We Do What We're Told" and "Don't Give Up". This makes it one of the most heavily represented albums in the entire series.
This was Gabriel's only Billboard #1 song, replacing "Invisible Touch", performed by his old band Genesis, at the #1 chart position, the first time a former member of a group replaced his/her former group at #1 in the history of the Billboard Hot 100. He made the Billboard Top 10 again with "Big Time" in 1987 off of the So album, but would never rise so high on the Billboard music charts again.
A slightly altered version of the shakuhachi refrain in the opening was used in "Better Living Through Chemistry" by Jan Hammer at appropriate moments.
The music video for the song, which features claymation by Nick Park of Wallace and Gromit fame, won nine MTV VMAs in 1987, a record that still stands, and has garnered the most airplay of any video on the network; it is considered one of the greatest music videos ever made.