Blue Monday (New Order song)

Here is the rewritten encyclopedia entry. "Blue Monday" is a track by the English rock band New Order, released as a 12-inch single on 7 March 1983 under Factory Records. It was included on some cassette and CD editions of the band's second studio album, Power, Corruption & Lies (1983). The song's writing and production credits belong to all four band members: Gillian Gilbert, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, and Bernard Sumner. Musically, the song blends Eurodisco, synth-pop, and alternative dance, taking inspiration from a variety of other artists.

Packaging

The 12-inch single's B-side features "The Beach," a mostly instrumental version of the track. Peter Saville and Brett Wickens designed the single's distinctive packaging, which uses a die-cut sleeve shaped like a 5.25-inch floppy disk. The cover contains no written words; instead, it displays a code of coloured blocks—invented by Saville—that encodes the artist, song, and label information. Upon its original release, "Blue Monday" reached the top 10 in numerous countries.

In the UK, it peaked at number nine on the singles chart and remained in the top 75 for 38 weeks. It also spent 186 weeks on the UK Independent Singles Chart, effectively selling for four years until its inclusion on the 1987 compilation Substance. This run on the Indie Chart was second only to Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart," which had 195 weeks (the two songs' chart runs overlapped). In New Zealand, it hit number two and stayed in the top 50 for 74 weeks across three calendar years.

Alternative versions

A 1988 remix reached number three on the British chart, number four in Australia, and topped the US dance chart. "Blue Monday" holds the record as the best-selling 12-inch single of all time. In the UK, combined sales across all formats—including the 1988 and 1995 re-releases—total 1.16 million copies. The original 1983 12-inch release accounts for the majority, with over 700,000 copies sold. The band remixed the song twice, in 1988 and 1995.

Legacy and influence

The 1988 remix went to number one in New Zealand and charted in the top 10 elsewhere. Artists such as Orgy, Flunk, 808 State, the Enemy, and Health have covered the song. Rolling Stone ranked it number 235 on its 2021 "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list and number 18 on its 2022 "200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time" list. New Order formed in 1980 from the remaining members of Joy Division after singer Ian Curtis's death.

Background and writing

The band later added Gillian Gilbert on keyboards and second guitar, and began experimenting with new music technology like synthesisers. The band wrote "Blue Monday" in their rehearsal space in Cheetham Hill, Manchester. The synth bassline was played on a Moog Source and sequenced using a device built by singer Bernard Sumner. An Oberheim DMX drum machine provided the rhythm; its kick drum was recorded by playing it through a studio monitor to capture the room's natural reverb.

New Order acquired an early sampler, the Emulator 1, and used it to sample choir sounds from Kraftwerk's "Uranium." The band learned to operate the sampler by recording their own flatulence and sneezes. Because MIDI did not yet exist, engineer Martin Usher designed a circuit to synchronise the synthesisers and drum machine. The sequence was programmed using binary code. Gilbert wrote the sequence by hand on a long paper roll, accidentally adding an extra rest that threw the timing slightly off; the band liked the result and kept it.

The song also reuses elements from their 1982 composition "Video 5 8 6." Bassist Peter Hook cited Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder, and Sparks as influences, claiming the song was "stolen" from Donna Summer's "Our Love." Sumner named Kraftwerk, Cabaret Voltaire, the Human League, and OMD as influences, and said parts were taken from "Dirty Talk" by Klein + MBO and "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" by Sylvester. Drummer Stephen Morris described "Blue Monday" as New Order "getting into Euro disco," while critics have called it a "synth-pop classic" that cemented the band's shift from post-punk to alternative dance. Barney Hoskyns of Spin highlighted it as an example of the hi-NRG club style, and the 2004 edition of The Rolling Stone Album Guide called it "the ultimate in flawlessly programmed, LSD-driven, push-button dance-pop." The song opens with a semiquaver kick drum, followed by a sequenced melody. It lacks a standard verse-chorus structure.

After a lengthy introduction, the first and second verses run together, separated from the third verse only by a brief series of sound effects. A short breakdown follows the third verse, leading into an extended outro. The BBC Radio 2 "Sold on Song" feature described it as "a crucial link between Seventies disco and the dance/house boom that took off at the end of the Eighties." While synth-pop had been a major force in British music for years, "Blue Monday"—encouraged by the band's manager Rob Gretton—was a dance record that also showed influences from the New York club scene. The 1983 edition's artwork mimics a 5.25-inch floppy disk.

The sleeve displays neither the group name nor the song title in plain English; the only text is "FAC SEVENTY THREE" on the spine. Instead, the legend "FAC 73 BLUE MONDAY AND THE BEACH NEW ORDER" is represented in code using a series of coloured blocks. The key to deciphering this code was printed on the back sleeve of the album Power, Corruption & Lies. "Blue Monday" and Power, Corruption & Lies are two of four Factory releases from this period to use the colour code, the others being New Order's "Confusion" and Section 25's From the Hip. The original sleeve, created by Factory designer Peter Saville and Brett Wickens, was die-cut.