Blue Monday (New Order song)

At nearly 7 and a half minutes in length, "Blue Monday" is one of the longest tracks ever to chart in the UK. It is recognised as the biggest selling 12" single of all time, but as Factory Records were not members of the British Phonographic Industry association, it was not eligible for an official gold disc. However, the Official UK Chart Company (UK Singles Chart) has estimated its total UK sales at over one million. In the all-time UK best-selling singles chart, published in 2002, "Blue Monday" came 76th.

The song begins with a distinctive semiquaver kick drum intro. Gillian Gilbert eventually fades in a sequencer melody. According to band interviews in NewOrderStory, she did so at the wrong time, so the melody is out of sync with the beat; however, the band considered it to be a happy accident that contributed to the track's charm. The verse section features the song's signature throbbing synth bass line, played by a Moog Source, overlaid with Peter Hook's bass guitar leads. The synth bass line was sequenced on a Powertran Sequencer home built by Barney.[2] Bernard Sumner delivers the lyrics in a deadpan manner. "Blue Monday" is an atypical hit song in that it does not feature a standard verse-chorus structure. After a lengthy introduction, the first and second verses are contiguous and are separated from the third verse only by a brief series of sound effects. A short breakdown section follows the third verse, which leads to an extended outro.

"Blue Monday" is often seen as one of the most important crossover tracks of the 1980s pop music scene. Synthpop had been a major force in British popular music for several years, but "Blue Monday" was arguably the first British dance record to exhibit an obvious influence from the New York club scene, particularly the work of producers like Arthur Baker (who collaborated on New Order's follow-up single "Confusion").

According to Bernard Sumner, Blue Monday was influenced by four songs: the arrangement came from Dirty Talk, by Klein & MBO; the signature bassline with octaves came from Sylvester's You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real); the house beat came from Our Love by Donna Summer; the long keyboard pad on the intro was sampled from the Kraftwerk song Uranium, from the Radio-Activity album. [3] In an interview for Channel 4's countdown of the biggest selling UK singles, the band claimed to have written the song in response to crowd disappointment at the fact that they never played encores. This song, they say, allowed them to return to the stage, press play on a synthesizer and leave the stage again.

As with many of New Order's songs, the title has no relationship with the lyrics, which in turn have been the subject of much debate. Although Bernard Sumner never publicly discusses his lyrics, many people have surmised that "Blue Monday" concerns the suicide of Joy Division vocalist Ian Curtis and the effect it had on his former bandmates. However, comparisons with the lyrics and the aftereffects of cocaine have also been made, which would fit in with the potentially drug related themes of many other New Order tracks. (Another legend has it that the band was on LSD while recording it, and after they finished the producers took them to a café to finish out their tripping while they went back and cleaned it up.) The song's references to a ship in the harbour, a beach (the name of the original release's B-Side) as well as other lyrics that could concern war together with the fact that more overt military imagery is used in a number of other New Order songs (such as the contemporaneous "We All Stand"), has also raised suggestions that the song is a reference to the Falklands War of 1982. Indeed, the video to the original 1983 release of the song used many clips of military vehicles, albeit in a warped manner, such as that of a Harrier Jump Jet, a plane which featured heavily in the conflict.

"Blue Monday" has been a hit several times in the UK. In 1983, it charted twice, initially reaching number 12, then re-entering the chart later in the year and climbing to number 9, helped by the fact that neither side of the single (the B-side "The Beach" was an instrumental re-working of "Blue Monday") was featured on the UK version of the group's subsequent album, Power, Corruption & Lies.

New Order appeared on the BBC's Top of the Pops, on 31 March 1983,^[1] to promote the song. It had long been the show's policy that artists would mime to a backing track, but New Order insisted on performing Blue Monday live. The performance was dogged by technical problems, and was unrepresentative of the recording. In the words of drummer Steve Morris, "Blue Monday was never the easiest song to perform, anyway, and everything went wrong. The synthesisers went awry. It sounded awful". ^[2] In 1988, "Blue Monday" was officially remixed by Quincy Jones and John Potoker under the title "Blue Monday 88" (with the instrumental flip being titled "Beach Buggy"). The single reached number 3 in the British charts and topped the charts in New Zealand. A further official remix/reissue in 1995, with a mix by Hardfloor as the lead track, also made the British Top 20.

A video clip for a shortened version of the original song was created in 1983, featuring military clips with false colour, simple computer-generated graphics such as color blocks and geometric lines, digitized video of band members at very low resolution and framerate, and a short appearance of the game Zaxxon (reportedly the Apple II port). The color blocks were created using Peter Saville's color coded alphabet.^[3]

The music video for "Blue Monday '88" (the Quincy Jones re-recording and mix of the song), shortened by several minutes and featuring added vocal effects, appears on the Substance video collection released as a companion to the album of the same name. It features sketches by photographer William Wegman and his Weimaraner dog named Fay Ray doing balancing acts intercut with hand-drawn animation by Robert Breer. The band members are shown standing around doing various tasks, such as walking a wooden plank over a floor that is painted blue, holding wire-mesh constructed art and milk crates over their faces, being hit by tennis balls, and standing still while they flip through various flip books (tying into the hand-drawn animation sequences). [4]

On the Australian show Rage, the video is simply footage taken from their Top of the Pops performance with the studio track dubbed over it.

A popular story about "Blue Monday" holds that the single's die-cut sleeve, created by Factory designer Peter Saville, cost so much to produce that Factory Records actually lost money on each copy sold. It is unlikely that Factory Records could have sustained the losses implied, and the sleeve was soon changed to a similar non-die-cut design that would cost no more than a regular sleeve.^[4] It is, however, probably true that New Order saw little profit from the single's success, since an investment in the Haçienda nightclub swallowed much of the money they made from their hit. ^[5]

Another notable feature of the sleeve is that it does not display either the group name nor song title in plain English anywhere. Instead the legend "FAC 73 BLUE MONDAY AND THE BEACH NEW ORDER" is represented in code by a series of coloured blocks. The key enabling this to be deciphered was printed on the back sleeve of the album, Power, Corruption & Lies. "Blue Monday" is one of several New Order releases from this time period to employ the colour code. The sleeve's spine simply reads "FAC SEVENTY THREE".

Music sample:

New Order - Blue Monday (1983)

29 second sound example/sample

Problems listening to the file? See media help.

In 1983 Divine re-recorded his single, the Bobby O produced "Love Reaction" in a style very similar to Blue Monday. Legal action was threatened by New Order for plagiarism, but never materialised. The song peaked at #65 on the UK singles chart in October 1983. Sumner once sang "Love Reaction" on "Blue Monday" in 1983 in a live performance.

In 1990, industrial music band Front Line Assembly sampled Blue Monday for their single "Iceolate"

In 1992, a cover version by Electroset was released as "How Does It Feel?". This entered the top 30 in the UK.

In 1992, The Times (Edward Ball's band) released the single "Lundi Bleu", a cover version of Blue Monday in French. The single featured an instrumental version as b-side.

In 1998 the American band Orgy released a highly successful cover of this song. Their cover of Blue Monday was the second single from their album Candyass. A few years later, Korean rock band Schizo and Russian rock band "Kooperativ 3.14zdets" remade Orgy's version.

In 1998, Viper released a single called "Blue Sunshine". This was a remix of Katrina and the Waves' "Walking on Sunshine", interpolated with "Blue Monday".

In 2001, a remix about Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation entitled "The Picard Song" sampled New Order's Blue Monday in parts.

In 2002 the music of "Blue Monday 1988" was combined with the Kylie Minogue vocal of "Can't Get You Out Of My Head", originally in a Soulwax mashup track, and was commonly known as "Can't Get Blue Monday Out Of My Head"or "Can't Get You Out of My Head on a Blue Monday". The song was popular in nightclubs and received widespread radio airplay. Minogue later went on to perform this track live, at the BRIT Awards, due to popular demand. She also sang some of Bernard's vocals from the original track at this performance. New Order have reciprocated by sampling the original track on their 2005 tour performances of Blue Monday. This song is also featured on the soundtrack to the film Layer Cake.

Also in 2002, Norwegian folktronica act Flunk released a downbeat cover of Blue Monday on their debut album, For Sleepyheads Only. In 2004, Flunk's cover was featured on the Walking Tall movie soundtrack, bringing it greater recognition.

A further semi-official remix, by Jamx & Deleon, entered the UK Dance Music charts in 2005. It was released on the band's current record label, London Records, but is not an official New Order release.

In Oct 2004 Benjamin Bates releases a track called "Whole" and on the vinyl is a remix of Blue Monday.

Also in 2005, the electrotango band Tanghetto released an album called Buenos Aires Remixed, including an electronica-tango version of the song. In 2006, the soundtrack to the Mexican film "La mujer de mi hermano" included Tanghetto's version. This positioned the cover in the alternative radio charts in the U.S.

In 2006, Nouvelle Vague released a cover of Blue Monday on their album Bande a Part.

In 2006, Mathilde Santing covered the song on her album Under your Charms.

In 2007, Rihanna sampled the Orgy version of the song in her song Shut Up and Drive.

In 2007, Lostprophets covered the song at the Full Ponty.

In 2007, M.I.A. sampled the song in her song "20 Dollar" on her album Kala

In 2007, Tripudio released a cover of Blue Monday on their album Cephalix

The popular 1980s band Happy Mondays have cited the song's title as being a direct inspiration for their name. They were label-mates of New Order on Factory Records, and both Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook of the band produced Happy Mondays tracks at different times.

The popularity and simplicity of the song has led to "Blue Monday" being a popular piece for computer demoscene groups to use in their works.

The ubiquity of the original 1983 version of Blue Monday has even spawned an ongoing artwork. "Blue Monday Owners Club" is essentially a growing collection of photographs of Blue Monday owners clutching their copies of the 1983 12". Spencer Graham, the artist behind the work describes the record as "The perfect synthesis of synthetic sound and design." See http://www.bluemondayownersclub.com

The band also re-recorded a 30 second version for Sunkist, with lyrics such as "when need that taste for living, Sunkist is the one". Sumner was reluctant to do it, so a sign with "$200,000" on it was placed in front of him while singing, although he claims this just added to his problems due to laughter.

In Shaun of the Dead the first record thrown from Shaun's record box is a copy of Blue Monday in the original floppy disk album sleeve. After Ed throws the record, Shaun sighs and exclaims that it was an "original pressing".

The first episode of the anime Eureka Seven is titled "Blue Monday" after the song.

The song was used in the 1992 movie Toys with Robin Williams.

The soundtrack album of the 1995 PlayStation game Wipeout featured the Hardfloor remix of the song. However, it was not featured in-game. [5]

Fatboy Slim's 1995 album, Better Living Through Chemistry features an album cover, at least on Skint Records CD releases, which is inspired by Blue Monday - it features a 3 1/2" floppy disk with the track names written on the label.

The song was also featured in the 1998 (but set in 1985) movie The Wedding Singer with Adam Sandler and is included on the film's 1980s-era soundtrack.

American Express used two excerpts from the 1983 original in their 1999 advertising campaign for the American Express Blue card, one of the first credit cards to carry a Smartcard.
In 2000, Oni Press published a comics series by Chynna Clugston-Major named Blue Monday
In 2001, Blue Monday was played during a nightclub scene in Buffalo Soldiers, starring Joaquin Phoenix
In 2003, Q Magazine voted Blue Monday the 9th Most Influential Song ever, the only dance track in the top ten. The 2005 NME God-Like Genuises award given to the band cited the track as being one of the reasons.

The song also was an unlockable track in FIFA 2005.

It was featured on the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories soundtrack on the "Wave 103" radio station.

In 2006/07 it was used in part of a Mars chocolate bar commercial.

Appeared in the 2006 film version of The History Boys (film).

A cover of this single was done by the Norwegian electronic band Flunk for Nancy Drew (2007 film).

In 2007, the song was used on the HBO television series Entourage as the background music for the trailer to the fictional Pablo Escobar biopic Medellin, starring the show's lead character Vincent Chase.

The song was also used in the 2000 film American Psycho, starring Christian Bale.

"Blue Monday" (7:29)
"The Beach" (7:19)

"Blue Monday 1988 [12" Version]" (7:09)
"Beach Buggy" (6:52)
"Blue Monday 1988 [7" Version]" (4:09)

"Blue Monday 1988 [12" Mix]" (7:09)
"Touched By The Hand Of God [Single Version]" (4:10)
"Blue Monday 1988 [Single Version]" (4:10)
"Blue Monday 1988 [Dub Version]" (7:16)

"Blue Monday [1983 12" Version]" (7:29)
"Blue Monday [Hardfloor Mix]" (8:34)
"Blue Monday [Manuela Mix]" (7:31)
"Blue Monday [Andrea Mix]" (8:26)
"Blue Monday [Plutone Mix]" (6:29)
"Blue Monday [Starwash Mix]" (5:29)
"Blue Monday [Hawtin Mix]" (8:02)

"Blue Monday" appears on almost every New Order compilation. This is a brief rundown of what versions appear where.

1987: Substance 1987 - Original 12" Version
1994: Best of New Order - 1988 7" version
1995: Rest of New Order - Hardfloor Mix [note: some versions come with a disc of Blue Monday remixes]
2002: International - Original 12" Version
2002: Retro - Original 12" Version & Jam And Spoon Manuela Mix
2005: Singles - Original 12" Version [note: this version omits the opening seconds] & 1988 7" version

^ Top of the Pops Episode dated 31 March 1983. imdb.com. Retrieved on November 03, 2007.
^ Simpson, Dave. "You woke up on a Thursday and it smelled like a Top of the Pops day". The Guardian, July 29, 2006. Retrieved on November 03, 2007.
^ [1]
^ http://www.niagara.edu/neworder/singles/bm.html
^ http://www.cerysmaticfactory.info/fac229.html

New Order Discography (includes images of sleeve)
Fan Site including Lyrics, Images, and Interviews
Fan site

New Order

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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Monday_%28New_Order_song%29"

Categories: Monday | New Order songs | 1983 singles | Billboard Hot Dance Club Play number-one singles | Synthpop songs

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