Star 69 / Weapon of Choice

Infobox Single
Name = Star 69 / Weapon of Choice


Artist = Fatboy Slim
from Album = Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars
Released = November 6, 2000
Recorded = 2000
Genre = Electronica, House
Length = 5:45
Writer = Fatboy Slim
Composer = Fatboy Slim
Label = Skint Records, Astralwerks
Producer = Fatboy Slim
Last single = "Demons" (2001)
This single = "Star 69 / Weapon of Choice" (2001)
Next single = "Song for Shelter / Ya Mama" (2001)
Misc = Extra chronology 2
Last single = "That Old Pair of Jeans" (2006)
This single = "Weapon of Choice (Remix)" (2006)
Next single = "Champion Sound"
(2006) |

"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.

"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." It also contains background vocal samples that were also used in "Don't Forget Your Teeth," the B-side to "Right Here Right Now". The song 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. [ [http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1543 "Weapon of Choice" by Fatboy Slim - SongFacts.com] ]

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. [ [http://web.archive.org/web/20011213230107/http://www.mtv.com/onair/vma01/winners/ 2001 MTV Video Music Award winners - MTV.com] Retrieved from Internet Archive on 21 December 2001.] 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. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/1951469.stm "Jonze dominates video poll."] News.BBC.co.uk, 26 April 2002. Retrieved 17 April 2008.]

Miscellanea

*At the beginning of the video, in a corridor in which Walken is dancing, there is a painting of a man, which is in fact a portrait of Fatboy Slim (Norman Cook) himself.
*This song was used 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 different instrumentation 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. In 2008, The clip is seen on 20 to One special on influential music clips that includes the original song. Most of the cast memebers of the advertisement stated that the found their appearances embarrassing, notably Richard Wilkins who didn't want to show the clip.Fact|date=August 2008
*One of the clips used in the background at about the 4:14 mark 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 Walken's 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".

"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".

Tracklisting

CD1

tracklist
collapsed =
headline =
all_writing =
all_lyrics =
all_music =
title1 = Star 69
title2 = Star 69
note2 = Radio Edit
title3 = Weapon Of Choice
title4 = Weapon Of Choice
note4 = Video

CD2

tracklist
collapsed =
headline =
all_writing =
all_lyrics =
all_music =
title1 = Star 69
note1 = Clean Edit
title2 = Star 69
note2 = Timo Maas Remix
title3 = Star 69
note3 = Full Version
title4 = Star 69
note4 = The 8Khz Remix
title5 = Weapon Of Choice
note5 = Video

References

External links

* [http://www.astralwerks.com/fbs/woc/ Music video for "Weapon of Choice" at Astralwerks.com]
* [http://machall.com/woc.html Ian McConville's parody of the "Weapon of Choice" music video]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKeHOpV1uLM Vasakronan-commercial Vasakronan commercial on YouTube]