Star 69 / Weapon of Choice
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| “Star 69 / Weapon of Choice” | |||||
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| Single by Fatboy Slim from the album Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars |
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| Released | November 6, 2000 | ||||
| Recorded | 2000 | ||||
| Genre | Electronica, House | ||||
| Length | 5:45 | ||||
| Label | Skint Records, Astralwerks | ||||
| Writer(s) | Fatboy Slim | ||||
| Producer | Fatboy Slim | ||||
| Fatboy Slim singles chronology | |||||
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"Star 69" / "Weapon of Choice" are songs by Fatboy Slim. Both were released as a double a-side single, peaking at #10 on the UK Singles Chart.
The music video for "Weapon of Choice", featuring Christopher Walken, won awards at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards.
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[edit] "Weapon of Choice"
"Weapon of Choice" features Bootsy Collins (Parliament/Funkadelic and Bootsy's Rubber band bassist) provided the lead vocals. "Weapon of Choice" features a prominent sample of Sly & the Family Stone's 1968 recording "Into My Own Thing" as well as The Chambers Brothers song "All Strung Out Over You." Much of the song's lyrics appear to be inspired by Frank Herbert's novel Dune[citation needed]. Some lines are taken almost verbatim, namely "walk without rhythm, and it won't attract the worm." It can be heard on the album Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars. The remix for the song on Fatboy Slim's greatest hits album The Greatest Hits - Why Try Harder peaked at #137 on the UK Singles Chart.
Frank Herbert's 1965 science fiction novel Dune and the 1984 David Lynch adaptation are the likely inspirations for the lyrics "Walk without rhythm, it won't attract the worm." In the novel, Paul Atreides notes "We must walk without rhythm" to avoid notice by a giant sandworm as he and his mother cross the desert of the planet Arrakis; Lynch's Dune features Paul's line "If we walk without rhythm, we won't attract the worm" 82 minutes into the film.[1]
[edit] Music video
The song is perhaps best known for its accompanying music video which is noted for the appearance of Christopher Walken. It is directed by Spike Jonze. The video has been credited by the music press and mass media for bringing a whole new generation of fans to Walken's talents.
In the video, Walken dances and flies around in an empty hotel lobby to the music.
Before he was an actor, Walken was trained as a dancer in musical theatre. The "Weapon of Choice" video won six MTV awards in 2001.[2] As one of the video's MTV "Moonmen" was for Best Choreography, Walken became a Video Music Award winner. The clip was also cited as the best video of all time in April 2002, in a list of the top 100 videos of all time that was compiled from a music industry survey by music TV channel VH1.[3]
[edit] Miscellanea
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- At one point in the video, Walken is dancing down a corridor. At the beginning of it, there is a painting of a man. This is in fact a portrait of Fatboy Slim (Norman Cook) himself.
- This song was in the commercial of The Jimmy Timmy Power Hour.
- In The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Libby Folfax played a little bit of the song with a different instrument on the episode "Vanishing Act".
- This song is used as a sound bed by EMAP, GCap Media and Tindle radio stations.
- The dance by Christopher Walken is used in the game Guild Wars with the /dance command with the male Dervish.
- This song is used in the movie Night at the Museum, released in 2006, starring Ben Stiller.
- The song makes a reference to the album it is featured in, Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars at 3:48 in the song.
- The song was used multiple times as scene music on Malcolm in the Middle.
- The song was used in Apple's demo of the Power Mac G5.
- The song was used as a station ID for the Nine television network in Australia, in 2002. It featured network personalities dancing around a hotel in a similar fashion to the actual film clip.
- One of the clips used in the background at about 4:14 is the drum intro played by John Bonham in his showcase song, Led Zeppelin's "Moby Dick."
- The video was filmed in the lobby at the Marriott Hotel in Los Angeles and their logo is seen on the red welcome mat as Walken rings the bell and dances through the double doors.
- Walken liked the idea so much he did not want money for his part in the video.
- According to an interview on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Walken got the inspiration for certain dance moves by observing raccoons.
- The Swedish PSB channel SVT's culture program, Kobra, made a spoof of the Weapon of Choice video in which Swedish actor Mikael Persbrandt played Walken's role. A 2006 commercial for the Swedish Real Estate Marketing company Vasakronan is based on the "Weapon of Choice" video, also with Persbrandt in Walkens role.
- In October 2007, Much More Music placed "Weapon of Choice" as number 4 of the Top 40 Most Memorable Music Videos on "Listed".
- The song is partly used for the theme tune of Alan Carr's Celebrity Ding Dong.
[edit] "Star 69"
"Star 69" (the other side), is a house track with the repeating verse "They know what is what, but they don't know what is what, they just strut, what the fuck?" over and over again. A radio edit exists with the word "fuck" taken out. This track is popular with DJ's and has been infinitely remixed and used in mashups due to the vocal hook. The sample is taken from "I Get Deep" by Roland Clark, which is also used in Fatboy's own "Song for Shelter".
[edit] References
- ^ "Weapon of Choice" by Fatboy Slim - SongFacts.com
- ^ 2001 MTV Video Music Award winners - MTV.com Retrieved from Internet Archive on 21 December 2001.
- ^ "Jonze dominates video poll." News.BBC.co.uk, 26 April 2002. Retrieved 17 April 2008.
[edit] External links
- Music video for "Weapon of Choice" at Astralwerks.com
- Ian McConville's parody of the "Weapon of Choice" music video
Vasakronan-commercial Vasakronan commercial on YouTube
