Sabotage (song)

"Sabotage"
Single by Beastie Boys
from the album Ill Communication
Released	January 28, 1994
Format	CD single
Recorded	1993
Genre	Hardcore punk, rapcore, rap rock
Length	2:58
Label	Grand Royal Records
Writer(s)	Beastie Boys
Producer	Beastie Boys, Mario Caldato, Jr.
Beastie Boys singles chronology
"Professor Booty" (1992) "Sabotage" (1994) "Get It Together" (1994)
Audio sample file info · help Music video "Sabotage" on YouTube

"Sabotage" is a song by American hip-hop group Beastie Boys, released as the first single from their fourth studio album Ill Communication.

The song's style is characterized as rapcore, featuring traditional rock instrumentation (Ad-Rock on guitar, MCA on bass, and Mike D on drums), turntable scratches and heavily distorted bass guitar riffs.

In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked "Sabotage" #475 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.^[1] In March 2005, Q magazine placed it at #46 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks, and was ranked #19 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the 90s list. Pitchfork Media included the song at #39 on their Top 200 Tracks of the 90s list.^[2]

Music video

The song's music video, directed by Spike Jonze and played extensively on MTV,^[3] is an homage and parody of 1970s crime drama television series such as Hawaii Five-O, The Streets of San Francisco, S.W.A.T., Baretta, and Starsky and Hutch. The video is presented as the opening credits of a fictional 1970s-style police show called Sabotage, with the band members appearing as the show characters. Each band member is introduced as a fictional actor, and the names of the characters are also given.

The characters appearing on the show are (in order of credits):

• Sir Stewart Wallace guest-starring as himself (played by MCA)
• Nathan Wind as Cochese (also played by MCA)
• Vic Colfari as Bobby, "The Rookie" (played by Ad-Rock)
• Alasondro Alegré as "The Chief" (played by Mike D)
• Fred Kelly as Bunny (played by DJ Hurricane)

Some scenes had to be removed when the video was shown on MTV, including a knife-fight sequence, a falling-off-a-bridge scene, as well as a scene in which a man is thrown out of a car into a street.^{[citation needed]} In addition, the Beastie Boys Video Anthology featured a mock interview of the "cast" of Sabotage conducted by Jonze's then-wife Sofia Coppola.

In the DVD commentary for the 1996 film Trainspotting, Danny Boyle credits the film's opening credits to those used in "Sabotage".^[4]

1994 MTV Video Music Awards

The video for "Sabotage" was nominated for Video of the Year, Best Group Video, Breakthrough Video, Best Direction in a Video, and Viewer's Choice at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards. However, it lost all five categories it was nominated in, losing Video of the Year, Best Group Video and Viewer's Choice to Aerosmith's "Cryin'", and Breakthrough Video and Best Direction in a Video to R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts".

During R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe's acceptance speech for the Best Direction award, Beastie Boys member MCA bum-rushed the stage in his "Nathaniel Hornblower" disguise, interrupting Stipe to protest the shutout of "Sabotage" from every category it was nominated in.

At the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, the "Sabotage" video won best video in the new category of "Best Video (That Should Have Won a Moonman)"^[5]

In popular culture

"Sabotage" was used as theme song in the show No Te Equivoques (2001-2002), a mexican version of Jackass hosted by Tony Dalton and Kristoff.

The song has also appeared in the video games Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, Madden NFL 10 and Rock Band. In addition, it is featured in DJ Hero as a mashup with the Foo Fighters song Monkey Wrench with a guitar part.

The video was shown in an episode of MTV's Beavis and Butt-head who responded to it enthusiastically, as if they had seen the video several times, and with Beavis treating it as if it were an actual trailer as opposed to a parody.

It also featured in the 2009 movie Star Trek - set 250 years after its release, young James Kirk plays this song on the radio during a joyride in his stepfather's '65 Corvette.

During Saturday Night Live's 25th Anniversary Special in 1999, the band played the first fifteen seconds of the song before their performance was "sabotaged" by Elvis Costello - who had famously done the same to one of his own songs in a 1977 episode - who was then joined by the Beastie Boys for "Radio, Radio", the controversial song he had played during the original incident.^[6]

Canadian hardcore punk band Cancer Bats covered the song on their EP Sabotage as well as their 2010 album Bears, Mayors, Scraps & Bones. It was also covered by alternative band Switchfoot in 2010.

In the multiplayer part of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 there is a game mode known as "Sabotage". If one successfully completes 30 rounds in this game mode, you are rewarded with the title "Intergalactic", in reference to another song by the Beastie Boys.

It is featured as part of the on-ride soundtrack to X², a roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain.

The Finnish political satire TV show Presidentin kanslia uses "Sabotage" as the background tune for teasers of upcoming episodes.

The BBC 5 Live radio show Fighting talk use the song as it's theme tune until the BBC cutbacks forced them to have an imitation version made which was more in keeping with the show

Charts

Chart (1994)	Peak position
Canadian RPM Singles Chart[7]	38
Dutch Singles Chart	35
UK Singles Chart[8]	19
U.S. Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles	15
U.S. Billboard Modern Rock Tracks[9]	18

References

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ Pitchfork Top 200 Tracks of the 90s
3. ^ http://nymag.com/nymetro/movies/features/1267/index2.html Page 3
4. ^ DVD commentary. Trainspotting.^{[clarification needed]}
5. ^ http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/awards/14199/the-only-vmas-category-that-matters/
6. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tondtut3dOc
7. ^ "Beastie Boys Top Singles positions". RPM. http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/rpm/028020-110.01-e.php?PHPSESSID=c6btf3r8hs459qqt5ln3o3dcv5&q1=Beastie+Boys&q2=Top+Singles&interval=20. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 
8. ^ "Beastie Boys Album & Song Chart History". Chart Stats. http://www.chartstats.com/artistinfo.php?id=155. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 
9. ^ "Beastie Boys Album & Song Chart History". Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc.. http://www.billboard.com/search/?keyword=beastie+boys#/artist/beastie-boys/chart-history/1007?f=377&g=Singles. Retrieved 2011-05-10. 

External links

• Comprehensive info at BeastieMania