"Sledgehammer" is a song by English rock musician Peter Gabriel. It was released on 21 April 1986 as the lead single from his fifth studio album, So (1986). It was produced by Gabriel and Daniel Lanois. It reached No. 1 in Canada on 21 July 1986, where it spent four weeks; No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States on 26 July 1986; and No. 4 on the UK Singles Chart, thanks in part to its music video. It was his biggest hit in North America and ties with "Games Without Frontiers" as his biggest hit in the United Kingdom. The song's video won a record nine MTV Video Music Awards at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards and Best British Video at the 1987 Brit Awards. The song also saw Gabriel nominated for three Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, Record of the Year and Song of the Year. In a 2005 poll conducted by Channel 4 the music video was ranked second on their list of the 100 Greatest Pop Videos. Background and release "Sledgehammer" has been described as dance-rock, funk rock and soul. Ryan Reed of Paste called the song a danceable "blue-eyed soul-strut". Trouser Press gave it as an example of Gabriel's "characteristically sophisticated music" which in this case "touches on funk". The song also features a synthesised shakuhachi flute generated with an E-mu Emulator II sampler. Gabriel said the "cheap organ sound" comes from an expensive Prophet-5 synth, which he regards as "an old warhorse" sound tool. The backing vocals were by P. P. Arnold, Coral "Chyna Whyne" Gordon, and Dee Lewis, who also did the backing for "Big Time". "Sledgehammer" is Gabriel's only US No. 1. It replaced "Invisible Touch" by his former band Genesis; coincidentally, that group's only US No. 1. Genesis lead singer Phil Collins later jested about the occurrence in a 2014 interview, stating, "I read recently that Peter Gabriel knocked us off the No. 1 spot with 'Sledgehammer'. We weren't aware of that at the time. If we had been, we'd probably have sent him a telegram saying: 'Congratulations – bastard.'" "Sledgehammer" also achieved success on other Billboard charts in 1986, spanning the Album Rock Tracks (two weeks at the summit in May and June) and Hot Dance Club Play (one week atop this chart in July). The single release included the previously unreleased