Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” won a record nine awards at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards.
The song came from Gabriel’s 1986 album So, and its video became famous for inventive stop-motion and pixilation animation. Gabriel appears in sequences involving fruit, vegetables, dancing objects, and changing facial imagery. Aardman Animations created much of the clay animation, while Stephen R. Johnson directed the video and coordinated its unusual visual techniques.
At the 1987 awards, the video won all nine categories in which it was nominated, including Video of the Year, Best Male Video, and Best Overall Performance. The achievement made it one of the defining award-show successes in music-video history. It is sometimes confused with Gabriel’s earlier “Shock the Monkey,” but “Sledgehammer” is the clip associated with the nine-award record.