"Sabotage" is a 1994 song by American hip-hop group Beastie Boys, released as the first single from their fourth studio albumIll Communication. The song features traditional rock instrumentation, turntablescratches, heavily distorted bass guitar riffs and lead vocals by Ad-Rock. A moderate commercial success, the song was notable as well for its video, directed by Spike Jonze and nominated in five categories at the 1994 MTV Music Video Awards. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked "Sabotage" #480 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. 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.
Music video
The song's music video, directed by Spike Jonze and played extensively on MTV, is a homage to, and parody of, 1970s crime drama shows 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's protagonists. 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 :
The Beastie Boys Video Anthology featured a mock interview of the "cast" of Sabotage conducted by Jonze's then-wife Sofia Coppola. Additionally, in the DVD commentary for the 1996 filmTrainspotting, Danny Boyle credits the film's opening credits to those used in "Sabotage." Actress Amy Poehler reviewed the music video in the 2018's Beastie Boys Book saying that, "there would be no, no Wes Anderson, no Lonely Island, and no channel called Adult Swim if this video did not exist."
Censorship
Some scenes had to be removed when the video was shown on MTV, including a knife fight sequence, a scene in which a man is thrown out of a car into a street, and one where another man is thrown off a bridge and is shown violently hitting the ground.
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 ".
The band Phish covered the song in their 1998 concerts at Hampton Coliseum, and it appears on the live album of those concerts, Hampton Comes Alive.
During Saturday Night Lives 25th Anniversary Special in 1999, the band played the first fifteen seconds of the song before their performance was "sabotaged" by Elvis Costello, who in 1977 had done the same to one of his own songs on the show; the Beastie Boys then accompanied him on "Radio, Radio", the song performed during the original incident.
In the 1999 Futurama episode "Hell Is Other Robots", the Beastie Boys perform several songs, including an a cappella version of the song.
The song is included in the track list for the 2007 video games' and Rock Band.
The song is heard early in J.J. Abrams' 2009 Star Trek film, played on a car stereo by an adolescent James T. Kirk. This is one of the few uses of licensed music in a Star Trek production. The song also plays a crucial part in the plot of the 2016 sequel Star Trek Beyond, in which it is used by Kirk and his officers to disrupt an alien attack on a Federation starbase.
The song was covered by hardcore punk band Cancer Bats for their 2010 album Bears, Mayors, Scraps & Bones.
The song was featured in the 2011 film Horrible Bosses.
The song is included in the official soundtrack of the 2012 film This Means War.
In 2013, the song was heavily played and used in the soundtrack of one episode of How I Met Your Mother.
Finnish band Steve 'N' Seagulls performed a version of the song in November 2015 for The A.V. Club A.V. Undercover series.
The song played during the Bronco chase scene in '.
The animated TV comedy series Family Guy used "Sabotage" in the 2016 episode "The New Adventures of Old Tom" for Peter and Tom Tucker's skateboarding video.
The song is featured in the live-action trailer "New Heroes Will Rise" for the 2017 video game Destiny 2.
The song is played as part of Zac Brown Bands Encore Setlist during the 'Down the Rabbit Hole' Tour
Bubs is shown dressed as Nathan Wind as Cochese in the Homestar Runner 2014 Halloween special, "I Killed Pom Pom".
