Everything You Know About “Blue Monday” is Probably Wrong I New British Canon
401,418
Published 2024-01-15
Perhaps, because the myths surrounding “Blue Monday” are belligerent and numerous, impeded by each member of the band having conflicting accounts of their 1980s. Many of the rumours and legends about the song are provably wrong, and yet still persist. It may be the song to get indie kids to the dancefloor, but what do we really know about this 7 and half minute groove-automaton? This is New British Canon and this is the story of “Blue Monday.”
#bluemonday #neworder #musicdocumentary
Fact-checking by Chad Van Wagner.
00:00 Introduction
00:56 "Everything's Gone Green" Joy Division to New Order
08:17 Recording Power, Corruption & Lies
12:37 "How Does It Feel?" Creating Blue Monday
21:42 The Release of Blue Monday
27:19 Sunkist & The Enduring Legacy of Blue Monday
Chapter and Verse: New Order, Joy Division and Me, Bernard Sumner, 2014, Transworld Digital
Substance: Inside New Order by Peter Hook, 2016, Simon & Schuster
FAST FORWARD Confessions of a Post-Punk Percussionist Volume II by Stephen Morris, 2020, Constable
The New Order Story (1993) dir. Kevin Hewitt
“Episode 7 Power, Corruption and Lies” New Order, Transmissions Podcast, Dec 2020
“Episode 8 Blue Monday” New Order, Transmissions Podcast, Dec 2020
“New Order” Paul Rambali, The Face, Jul 1983
“When There’s No More Room in Hell” Chris Bohn, NME, Jul 1983
“New Order: Shaming the Nation” Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, Jan 1986
“New Order: Shock Of The New” Chris Roberts, Sounds, Apr 1986
“The Perfect Kiss” Barry Walters, Spin Magazine, May 1988
“Tell Me, How Does It Feel? New Order and the 'Blue Monday' syndrome” Len Brown, David Quantick, New Musical Express, May 1988
“New Order: Praxis” Paul Mathur, Blitz, February 1989
“New Order: Joyful Division” Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 12 May 1993
“Peter Hook Interview” Q Magazine's 1001 Best Songs Ever, 2003
“Let it bloody happen…” Andrew Male, Mojo Magazine, Nov 2008
“New Order: The Making Of 'Blue Monday'” Stephen Dalton, Uncut, Dec 2008
“Joyless divisions: The end of New Order” Rob Fitzpatrick, The Guardian, Jul 2011
“New Order - How We Wrote ‘Blue Monday’” Barry Nicolson, NME, 2012
“How we made: New Order's Gillian Gilbert and designer Peter Saville on Blue Monday” Dave Simpson, The Guardian, Feb 2013
“Peter Hook [Joy Division, ex-New Order]” Greg Prato, Songfacts, Oct 2014
“Bernard Sumner Talks to Northern Soul” Andy Murray, Northern Soul, Oct 2014
“NEW ORDER’S ‘BLUE MONDAY’ SUNKIST COMMERCIAL” Oliver Hall, Dangerous Minds, July 2015
“ELECTRI_CITY_CONFERENCE 2015” Chi Ming Lai, Electricity Club, Nov 2015
“Peter Hook Talks Getting Knocked Out At Worst Gig Ever” Gordon Smart, Radio X, Mar 2018
““It felt like we were changing the world”: inside New Order’s seminal ‘Power, Corruption & Lies’” Andrew Trendell, NME, Sep 2020
“Chosen Time” Dave Simpson, Record Collector, Nov 2020
“The Story of Kraftwerks Electric Cafe” Tobias Fischer, Beat, Jul 2022
“New Order interview: Power, Corruption & Lies” John Earls, Classic Pop, Sep 2022
“Forty years of New Order’s Blue Monday: who inspired it and who it inspired” Alexis Petridis, The Guardian, Mar 2023
Soundtrack
Luar - Citrine (soundcloud.com/luarbeats)
Jesse Gallagher - The Golden Present
Luar - Anchor (soundcloud.com/luarbeats)
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All Comments (21)
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Every now and then I get people asking for a playlist of every song mentioned in my videos: Well here's a Spotify link for this one: open.spotify.com/playlist/4ZV8Iqao1OVUMSK9yRvP1T?s… And the YouTube Music link: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLooaZ33lSalctQuuxsOfBo_…
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I was a club DJ in the 80s, and I can honestly say that Blue Monday ushered in modern electronic dance music. It was my most requested song. That track was responsible for the term "floorgasm". It is one of the few electronic masterworks which will never get old.
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Seriously this has to be one of YouTube's best music channels... Every episode is a belt down of good writing and presentation. Thank you
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the amount of times i have listened to this song is truly obscene. it's one of the best pieces of music ever made.
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Straight up, this was possibly one of the most beautiful well written and edited documentaries I have seen. No joke. I really did enjoy it that much.
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There’s a reason so many modern pop stars sample songs like Blue Monday. It’s just one of the biggest bangers of all time, honestly. The bass, the rhythm, it’s pretty much perfect and sticks in your head like nothing else. I don’t think I’ll ever be completely sick of the song no matter how much I listen to it.
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“How can these mancunian heterosexuals know about this?” Fucking hilarious and iconic line right there
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This kind of musical archeology just makes me love these tracks even more. The goofs and recording idiosyncrasies that contributed to Blue Monday, the fact that it was made to be something they could set up and run while they walked off the stage to get pissed in the dressing room, the impossibility of actually playing it live, make it so much more enjoyable! Thanks for this!
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I'm 32 and obviously nowhere near old enough to remember New Order in their prime but they're my favourite band by quite some distance. I've not even watched the full video yet, but I know I'm going to enjoy it. I'm so grateful you've covered this incredible band.
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They took that sparse, somewhat cold and distant early synth sound and made something you could shake your ass to. Absolutely lovely
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Thank you for not on;y surpassing the Swedish previously go-to Blue Monday documentary that disappeared too quickly from the Internet, but for making one of the best short documentaries I’ve ever seen. You are so good at what you do. Thank you.
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The first time I actually came across Blue Monday was in the Kylie Minogue performance at the Brit Awards ! I was obsessed with that remix as a teen and played it all the time. But when I discovered the original by New Order in a commercial on tv, I was blown away. It's one of my favorite electronic tracks, a timeless classic. The bass, the synth, the singing, it's intoxicating. There's nothing like it.
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I remember a buddy from grade 9 having this 12inch. I had a large wooden console stereo at home and after school we went bonkers to this tune. That old wooden stereo had the bass!
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A few years back I Dj'd my 35th high school reunion in California. Hands down, this was the most requested songs of the night. I've had the pleasure of Dj'ing in Germany, Italy, Spain and Greece and just as the video states, the song always fills the dance floor.
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I was just entering my teens when I got into New Order in ‘83, so all of this is vastly enlightening. Thanks for making this.
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Great story. The influence of Italo disco, and the Hi-NRG sound that helped create Italo disco, are just a couple of the many reasons that I consider 78-82, leading into 83's Blue Monday, to be a golden period of popular music.
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Its unbelievable how many things you can put in a video, and it's still so easy to watch! Love your content bro!
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Brilliant, insightful and incisive as always! Great video thank you. True fact about 'Blue Monday': in a secondary school in Newport Pagnell in 1983, me and my little gang actually drove our maths teacher crazy mad by tapping out the beat on our desks every single time she turned her back to write on the board 🤣🤣 Oh how we LOVED that song! And yep, still unsurpassed today.
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There are three tracks that had a massive influence on my early teen years and the reason I loved to dance back then. The first one was "Pump up the Jam" by Technotronic, the second Eurythmics with "Sweet Dreams" and Blue Monday. And I never get tired of any of them. To this day. Thanks for the fantastic work on this!
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Sumner having a wee smile when Morris fks up on the live TOTP performance. Absolute gold! 😂 (Great vid again by the way. )
