Star 69 / Weapon of Choice
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| "Star 69 / Weapon of Choice" | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
|||||
| Single by Fatboy Slim | |||||
| from the album Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars | |||||
| Released | 23 April 2001 | ||||
| Recorded | 2000 | ||||
| Genre | Alternative big beat, house music | ||||
| Length | 5:45 | ||||
| Label | Skint Records, Astralwerks | ||||
| Writer(s) | Fatboy Slim | ||||
| Producer | Fatboy Slim | ||||
| Fatboy Slim singles chronology | |||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
"Star 69" / "Weapon of Choice" are songs by Fatboy Slim. They were released together 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 multiple awards at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards and earned a Grammy Award for Best Short Form Video.
Contents |
[edit] "Star 69"
"Star 69" 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 DJs and has often been 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] "Weapon of Choice"
"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." Parliament/Funkadelic and Bootsy's Rubber Band bassist Bootsy Collins provided the lead vocals; it also contains background vocal samples that were also used in "Don't Forget Your Teeth," the B-side to "Right Here, Right Now" from the album You've Come a Long Way, Baby. The remix of the song featured 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, directed by Spike Jonze and featuring actor Christopher Walken, who was trained as a dancer in musical theatre prior to his acting career, dancing and flying around in an empty hotel (the Los Angeles Marriott) to the music. The video has been credited by the music press and mass media for bringing a whole new generation of fans to Walken's talents.
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 VH1.[3]
 |
|
||||
| Problems listening to this file? See media help. | |||||
The video was spoofed at the end of the episode "Life Slaver" of the animated cartoon 6teen.
[edit] Track listing
[edit] CD1
Catalogue SKINT64CD
| # | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Star 69" (full version) | 5:57 |
| 2. | "Star 69" (radio edit) | 3:35 |
| 3. | "Weapon of Choice" | 5:38 |
| 4. | "Weapon of Choice" (video) | 3:31 |
[edit] CD2
Catalogue SKINT64XCD
| # | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Star 69" (Timo Maas remix) | 7:10 |
| 2. | "Star 69" (X-Press 2 Wine 'Em, Dine 'Em, 69 'Em Mix) | 8:20 |
| 3. | "Star 69" (DJ Godfather Detroit Getto-Tek Mix 1) | 4:03 |
[edit] 12"
Catalogue SKINT64
| # | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Star 69" | |
| 2. | "Star 69" (Timo Maas remix) | |
| 3. | "Star 69" (DJ Delite) |
[edit] Charts
| Chart (2001) | Peak Position |
|---|---|
| UK Singles Chart | 101 |
| U.S. Billboard Modern Rock Tracks | 332 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Club Play | 33, 104 |
| Chart (2006) | Peak Position |
| UK Singles Chart | 1375 |
Notes:
- 1 - "Star 69/Weapon of Choice" double a-side single.
- 2 - "Weapon of Choice"
- 3 - "Star 69"
- 4 - "Star 69" (censored version)
- 5 - "Weapon of Choice" (remix)
[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
- Low budget parody
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
