Rapid 16th-note kicks, Peter Hook’s thudding bassline, Stephen Morris' synths, Bernard Sumner’s deadpan lyrics with the legendary opening line ’How Does It Feel?’ – In short, the elements of the iconic dance track that were put together 30 years ago, in 1983, Manchester’s Factory Records. New Order's own bickering aside, we'd just like to open up the origins and destiny of ’Blue Monday’ as part of the 'Evolution of Music' feature series.
The track widely regarded as the link between seventies disco and the dance/house boom of the late eighties is, no doubt, one of the most influential songs of all time. 'Blue Monday' became a significant track from the moment it was unleashed in the UK on March 7, 1983. Over time, it has build up its reputation, becoming the best selling 12“ of all time. In addition, the seller of all times is also the longest track ever to chart in the UK at nearly seven-and-a-half minutes in length. Most lately it got voted #18 in Mixmag’s 'The 50 Greatest Dance Tracks of All Time’ poll.
Ironically, the tune that would change the creators' lives forever, wasn't the outcome of a nearly as ambitious plan. New Order's Gillian Gilbert (keyboards & synthesizers, guitars) opened the background of "Blue Monday" in a February 2013 interview with the Guardian:
"Blue Monday was meant to be robotic, the idea being that we could walk on stage and do it without playing the instruments ourselves. We spent days trying to get a robot voice to sing "How does it feel?", but somebody wiped the track. Bernard ended up singing it. He says the lyric came about because he was fed up with journalists asking him how he felt. The lines about the beach and the harbour were the start of his many nautical references – he loves sailing. And Peter Hook's bassline was nicked from an Ennio Morricone film soundtrack."
The original music video for 'Blue Monday' (1983).
Bernar Sumner (vocals, guitars, keyboards & synthesizers) has stated that 'Blue Monday' was influenced by four songs. The arrangement came from 'Dirty Talk' by Klein + M.B.O; the bassline with octaves originates in Sylvester's disco anthem 'You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)'; the beat was influenced by Donna Summer's 'Our Love', and the lasting keyboard pad on the intro and outro was sampled from 'Uranium' by Kraftwerk.
Johnny Marr, who worked with Bernard Sumner in Electronic, recently shared a story about Sumner's talk with Kraftwerk's Karl Bartos in a recording studio back in the 90s:
"We went in the studio and Bernard said, "what synth did you use on that, and how'd you make that?" And Karl's going, "oh I just switched this box on it, and went like that." And Bernard said, "NO! Wow! In New Order we tried to make that sound, we took four days making it, I turned this upside down, and I stuck that wire into that, and I put this microphone into that." Karl said, "Oh, well maybe we should be sampling New Order."
'Uranium' - track by Kraftwerk from 1975. The sample at 1:36 in 'Blue Monday' comes from 0:34 in 'Uranium'
I think that's enough on the birth of the hereby composition. Let's look a bit into what happened to the atypical single after it became a big commercial hit. One of the more interesting stories has to do with a Sunkist ad, New Order was asked to do. Peter Hook has commented on this:
"It's very interesting actually because the Sunkist commercial, we got offered 350 thousand dollars to do a lyrical version of "Blue Monday" that mentioned Sunkist...what happened was the guy came down with the lyrics and he was a very nice guy actually and he persuaded Bernard --we were really against it--he persuaded Bernard to have a go at it, so Bernard sang it, we all pissed ourselves laughing and sent the guy on his way...we didn't do the Sunkist advert--we turned it down, the 350 thousand dollars--and the guy went on his way.
"What happened was at that moment we were recording "Blue Monday" for Quincy Jones to remix, so the tape then got sent to Quincy Jones in L.A. to be remixed, but the guy--the engineer--hadn't wiped the Sunkist vocal...so that when the engineer heard it in L.A. he gave it to a friend with this Sunkist vocal mix on it. So Sunkist actually got their advert for nothing and I think that that's punk...so you can tell the Cure we did it for nothing...we didn't get paid for it, we did it out of stupidity."
Now when it comes to samples used, remixes produced and mash-ups mashed - I've come up with some figures from tracks that have reached the wider consciousness. I didn't even try to count the mash-ups, because ..well, just type 'Blue Monday' mash-ups into any search engine..
- 11 tracks have sampled 'Blue Monday', ranging from 1983 - 2010.
- 15 more widely known covers have been recorded from 1992-2010.
- 6 remixes from 1992 - 2013
I chose my favorite cover and the latest remix to finish off the commemoration of one of the most legendary dance tracks of all time!
Firstly the cover by the French cover band Nouvelle Vague!
John Digweed and Nick Muir have done a dubbed mix especially for the 30th anniversary!