Star (guitar)

The star is an avant-garde body shape of solid body electric guitar, particularly favoured for heavy metal music. It blends some features of the Flying V and Gibson Explorer, both of them much older designs.

Models

Jackson

The earliest known star bodies were built by Jackson Guitars, who produced both through-neck custom models and commercial versions with bolt-on necks.

More recently, Jackson have produced the Jackson Kelly Star KSXT/KS-2 with a similar body shape to the Star, combining the "front" half of a Jackson Kelly with the asymmetric pointed 'V' ends of the Jackson Randy Rhoads. This body shape was only in production for a short time in the early 2000s, with its market niche now being served by the Jackson Warrior, which is less distinctly "star" shaped at first glance but has a similar general structure.

Other major makers

A star body produced by Kramer Guitars was known as the Voyager. Charvel Guitars have also produced at least one model of star profile.

The Dean ML is a similar design to the star, but differs in having symmetrical tail horns (or wings as they are known in Flying V and similar designs). The Washburn Guitars Dime (or Dimebag, after Dimebag Darrell who popularised the Dean design) uses the Dean ML profile.

Star Guitar

"Star Guitar" is the second single from The Chemical Brothers 2002 studio album Come with Us. The song reached number eight in the UK Singles Chart, number two on the American dance chart and number one in the UK Dance Chart. The song was greeted with praise from critics.

Structure

"Star Guitar" is 127 beats per minute and in the key of F major.

The song contains a four measure-long acoustic guitar sample from the beginning of the David Bowie song, "Starman," hence the name, "Star Guitar." This sample is repeated throughout the majority of the track, with various musical elements playing off of it as a main theme. The song also contains an electronic sample of "Fly to Venus" by Electronic System.

Video

The music video, directed by Michel Gondry, features a continuous shot filmed from the window of a speeding train passing through towns and countryside. However, the buildings and objects passing by appear exactly in time with the various beats and musical elements of the track. The video is based on DV footage Gondry shot while on vacation in France; the train ride between Nîmes and Valence was shot ten different times during the day to get different light gradients. The Pont du Gobinet as well as Pierrelatte's station can be seen. Gondry had experimented with a different version of the same effect in his video for Daft Punk's "Around the World", where he had represented each element of the music with a dancer.