How does it feel

March 7, 2023 2:56 PM

New Order's Blue Monday was released 40 years ago on 7 March 1983.

The song was hugely influential, and has been covered in incredible diversity (previously).

posted by Fiasco da Gama (71 comments total)

I had multiple months of college in a row where this song was literally the only song I listened to when I got to pick the music. Just "Blue Monday" on loop. Just in case you want to know what I'm like, that's what I'm like.

Still crank the radio when it comes on. One of the best pop songs of all time.
posted by potrzebie at 3:09 PM on March 7, 2023 [16 favorites]

Happy Blue Monday Tuesday everybody!
posted by ActingTheGoat at 3:09 PM on March 7, 2023 [8 favorites]

Yikes! George Gershwin's Blue Monday was 1922, the top songs from 1943 were, like, Frank Sinatra. 20 years before "Blue Monday" was "Please Please Me" by The Beatles. 40 years on, it still sounds like it is from the future.

It's not my favorite New Order song, not even sure it is possible to have a favorite, but if there were another Voyager Gold Record sent out into the universe, it's definitely the New Order song I would include.
posted by snofoam at 3:12 PM on March 7, 2023 [6 favorites]

It's the essence of the 1980s. And I say that like it's a good thing
posted by chavenet at 3:16 PM on March 7, 2023 [11 favorites]

Also, I developed a real soft spot for Music Complete outtake "Be a Rebel" that was released during the pandemic. It was so welcome to have it.
posted by snofoam at 3:17 PM on March 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

I recorded that off of KROQ and played it over and over again for weeks. Little did I know it would be in rotation 40 years later, LOL. I'm almost Shellshocked!
posted by Chuffy at 3:18 PM on March 7, 2023 [8 favorites]

I bought the floppy-disk 12” when it first came out and was a little less than impressed. But then I went out and got Power, Corruption and Lies and was like, oh yeah! Then I got Movement and life was complete. Joy Division was a few months away for me. I was 13 or something so I cut myself some slack with discovering New Order before JD.
posted by misterpatrick at 3:22 PM on March 7, 2023 [3 favorites]

How does it feel? [Slowly stands up and stretches, joints audibly cracking and popping] more like how doesn't it feel, right
posted by phooky at 3:28 PM on March 7, 2023 [24 favorites]

Still slaps.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:30 PM on March 7, 2023 [16 favorites]

That Orkesta Obsolete cover rules. As one of the comments on the video says, it's like a group of 1920s supervillains formed a band.
posted by zompist at 3:33 PM on March 7, 2023 [13 favorites]

Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Ready Player One is pretty mediocre, but the best scene is set in a virtual zero-g dance club. Guess what song they're dancing to.
posted by vibrotronica at 3:37 PM on March 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

I really love New Order, but with only very few exceptions, the lyrics just can't compete with those of Ian Curtis. Songs like Isolation and Ceremony were hints sonically of where Joy Division was headed, and came to genre apotheosis in the early-to-mid 80s, but I sometimes still wonder what Ian would have done with a song like Blue Monday (and a few years of development as a vocalist as well; I dare you to listen to Barney's performance of Sub-culture from Low-Life and tell me he's an innately superior singer).
posted by tclark at 3:39 PM on March 7, 2023 [6 favorites]

I love New Order with a love that cannot be shaken or shattered no matter how often I think "They should have said 'Bernie, you're fantastic, but we're getting literally anyone else to write these lyrics'," which is basically any time I listen to Crystal

"here comes love, it's like honey, you can't buy it with money" buddy I buy honey with money ALL the time, what are you even talking about

going to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Blue Monday by listening to the K-Klass remix of Ruined In A Day for the millionth time
posted by taquito sunrise at 3:45 PM on March 7, 2023 [13 favorites]

This is relevant to my interests.
posted by Gadarene at 3:45 PM on March 7, 2023 [3 favorites]

Apologies if my previous comment may have come across as threadshitting.

Blue Monday is truly a brilliant song, and deserves to be in the pantheon of songs that broke specific sounds into the mainstream along with the likes of Smells Like Teen Spirit.
posted by tclark at 3:47 PM on March 7, 2023 [6 favorites]

The original music video is quite the artifact of its time.
posted by vibrotronica at 3:48 PM on March 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

I DJ'd at a college campus bar in the mid/late 80's and Blue Monday always packed the dancefloor. It was the pinnacle of that particular minimalism that highlighted the best elements of early EDM.
posted by OHenryPacey at 3:50 PM on March 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

Vibrotronica, you've accidentally linked to the RP1 video.
posted by OHenryPacey at 3:51 PM on March 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

How does it feel

Ow my back I need to sit down.
posted by loquacious at 3:54 PM on March 7, 2023 [11 favorites]

Sorry about that. Here's the 1983 music video in all its false color, low-res glory.
posted by vibrotronica at 3:56 PM on March 7, 2023 [9 favorites]

I love Nu Metal covers of pop bangers and the Orgy cover of Blue Monday is no exception.
posted by Reyturner at 4:00 PM on March 7, 2023 [7 favorites]

Apologies if my previous comment may have come across as threadshitting.

I basically said the same thing but meaner so you're off the hook I think

New Order gets a pass from me because they weren't anticipating needing a singer or lyricist, & it must have been a very hard bad time for everyone, & they were doing the best they could

that being said this is the band that gave us "I have always thought about / staying here and going out / tonight I should have stayed at home / playing with my pleasure zone," so perhaps they deserve a little bit of shit
posted by taquito sunrise at 4:02 PM on March 7, 2023 [5 favorites]

I've probably listened to Blue Monday more than any other track in my life. I re-made it at least three times on various terrible synthesizers trying to learn how to be an electronic musician...

As for New Order lyrics all you have to do is listen to "Every Little Counts" to realize that they are basically an awesome electronic Joy Division (music) combined with Weird Al Yankovitch (lyrics) and I'm OK with that.
posted by mmoncur at 4:03 PM on March 7, 2023 [6 favorites]

My first real introduction to New Order was when I was hanging out with a school friend, and we were just getting into like punk and 80s ska and new wave and stuff, partially thanks to his older brothers.

And so my friend's total maniac of an older brother burst into the room hollering about something - and usually that meant he was going to start throwing lit fire crackers into the room - but no he was bellowing about how we needed to listen to this song right fucking now and went and tossed whatever it was we had on the turntable over his shoulder and cranked up the extended mix of Bizarre Love Triangle.

Which I must confess didn't really grab me at first, perhaps mainly because I was now very concerned about needing to flee from firecrackers in a small apartment bedroom, and also because he was being very intense and telling us to shut up and listen all the way through and seemingly waiting for something important.

Which he was. I remember him hollering something like "Listen! Fucking frogs! Can you hear that shit? Isn't that fucking wild!" and started laughing like a total lunatic. I mean like mad scientist struck by lightning wait are you actually going to murder us right now kind of cackling.

After that shock, well, it took a while for me to warm up to New Order, and of course I'm a huge fan of New Order, now. But every so often I hear the frog noises in Bizarre Love Triangle and I still remember my friend's punk rock older brother and his huge stinky, pimply face hollering in our faces about the frogs.

I still have no idea what he was on about. I mean I like the frog samples, too, but apparently he thought it was the best thing since fire and was more excited about those samples and frog noises than I've ever seen anyone get excited about music in my entire life, and I've seen a whole lot of that.
posted by loquacious at 4:18 PM on March 7, 2023 [20 favorites]

Well of course it's the perfect New Order song because it's the third time they recorded it! Listen to 5 8 6 or Everything's Gone Green and you'll see how it all finally fell together on Blue Monday.
posted by JoeZydeco at 4:32 PM on March 7, 2023 [5 favorites]

potrzebie, I will road trip with your college-aged version any day of the week.

This has been one of my all-time favorite songs for as long as it has existed (also the case for “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” so I always sit out any Joy Division vs. New Order debates).
posted by ejs at 4:36 PM on March 7, 2023 [5 favorites]

True Faith is probably the one I played most.
I saw them live and wore the t-shirt until it fell to pieces.
posted by Glinn at 4:52 PM on March 7, 2023 [4 favorites]

Seems like a good time to recommend Garfield Vibing to Blue Monday . This one is an interesting entry into the genre of Garfield meme accounts because it became increasingly topical as it went. It starts with Garfield having a good time and ends with riots and pandemics.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 5:16 PM on March 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

This is no disrespect to this song, because "Blue Monday" is absolutely great and I have no issue with it. I will crank it up every time it comes on the radio, which is fairly often (mostly because I listen to a lot of SiriusXM's First Wave).

But somehow it became the "default '80s" song for any media property set in the '80s and yes, it's a good song, but there are other songs. I even started a jokey playlist called "Songs That Aren't 'Blue Monday' That Can Be Used in Your '80s-Based Movie or TV Show."

I get it, though. "Blue Monday" sounds cool as hell and definitely places things in the '80s. I just want people to do better with needle-drops.
posted by edencosmic at 5:41 PM on March 7, 2023 [6 favorites]

snofoam: “Yikes! George Gershwin's Blue Monday was 1922, the top songs from 1943 were, like, Frank Sinatra. 20 years before "Blue Monday" was "Please Please Me" by The Beatles. 40 years on, it still sounds like it is from the future.”

I looked it up because I was curious. Number 1 on 07 March 1943 was “I've Heard That Song Before” by Harry James. I think you're absolute right about “Blue Monday” not seeming as dated today as big band music did in 1983.
posted by ob1quixote at 6:06 PM on March 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

New Order's Blue Monday was released 40 years ago on 7 March 1983.

Geez, way to make me feel old.

I liked New Order ok and listened to them a lot, but my heart was always more on the punkish side of things.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:27 PM on March 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

Ow my back I need to sit down.

Literally how I felt after seeing New Order last summer and alternating between sitting on a grass slope and standing up on it for the whole show.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:40 PM on March 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

Even knowing the actual lyrics, I always hear “eye cannon, shallow bay.”
posted by Mister Moofoo at 6:47 PM on March 7, 2023 [6 favorites]

FWIW: I’ve got a public playlist on Spotify with 4 hours of Blue Monday covers sorted by BPM (slowest to fastest). Send me memail if you’d like a link.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 6:48 PM on March 7, 2023 [6 favorites]

When I think of Blue Monday recently, all I can think of is that awesome trailer for WW 1984 that used it and made it seem like the greatest thing since cinnamon graham crackers.

Too bad the movie didn't deliver on that
posted by drewbage1847 at 6:55 PM on March 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

WW84 had probably the biggest trailer/film quality difference I have ever seen and it was mostly due to the remix of Blue Monday. Watched the trailer literally dozens of times, then watched the movie for literally a dozen minutes before turning it off.
posted by migurski at 6:58 PM on March 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

It even sounds good in Amiga MOD format (the "Play With Online Player" only works for me on Chrome btw)
posted by credulous at 7:01 PM on March 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

Blue Monday is Gen X's Freebird. It's simultaneously a classic and completely overdone cliche, and you can absolutely hear its influences in pretty much any of your favorite EDM tracks. One of the very few tracks that have a skip_count = 0. You know it's a good track when pretty much any cover of it is also good. The Orgy cover is good. The Atomic Blonde soundtrack cover is good. Your friend's Youtube cover of it is good.

It sounds grim, but I don't think you get Blue Monday if Ian Curtis is still alive. Just two fundamentally different bands. And that's not a bad thing.
posted by mark242 at 7:36 PM on March 7, 2023 [7 favorites]

I'm glad I saw New Order on their Unity Tour with Pet Shop Boys last fall, but I'm also glad I had earbuds with active noice cancellation wedged into my ears because 106dB as reported by my watch at the back of the venue was FUCKING LOUD. But I mean that's what 45 years of touring will do, right?

Hell of a light show, too.
posted by Kyol at 7:37 PM on March 7, 2023 [3 favorites]

I graduated from high school in 1988 including living for my junior and senior years (1986-1988) in England where I went to all the school discos and I knew OF New Order and OF the song but I never explored their videos or albums.

Listening, I now realize this track was the soundtrack to my high school life.
posted by bendy at 7:56 PM on March 7, 2023 [4 favorites]

I would be overjoyed if Orkestra Obselete got back together and put out an album.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 8:18 PM on March 7, 2023 [5 favorites]

40 years on, it still sounds like it is from the future.

No kidding, listen to Above and Beyond's version* that was a dance club hit in 2020. It's rearranged a bit, the kick drums are punchier but it's substantially the same song, and better than most club songs from 2020.

* I believe they couldn't get the rights so this is technically a cover version, not a remix, but they were playing a remixed version for years before that.
posted by mmoncur at 9:13 PM on March 7, 2023 [3 favorites]

...the same thing but meaner so you're off the hook...
I see what you did there.
posted by mistersix at 10:13 PM on March 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

I was around in 1983 when the first Blue Monday came out, but I actually prefer the 1988 Quincy Jones remix (single version). Somehow it sounds both funkier and creepier.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:21 PM on March 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

Don't forget where Blue Monday got its choir from.

Kraftwerk's Uranium
posted by readyfreddy at 11:07 PM on March 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

I have a friend who used to run a tumblr about Blue Monday. I told him he needed to start posting to it again and here's a lot of material for him.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 11:17 PM on March 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

There's a persistent rumour (which I choose to believe) that the original die-cut sleeve was so expensive to produce that Factory actually lost money on every 12" copy sold with that packaging. We don't know how many copies went out the door before the sleeve could be amended, but given Blue Monday's popularity, it's a safe bet that it was a lot more than the label had expected.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:31 PM on March 7, 2023 [3 favorites]

The Guardian have an article to commemorate the anniversary. What I found interesting is a list of the songs that apparently inspired Blue Monday. We have:

Ennio Morricone's Score from For a Few Dollars More - for the twangy lead guitar hook.
Uranium by Kraftwerk - for the sample used near the beginning by New Order (after they had got bored of recording their farts).
Sylvester - You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) - shades of the main grove.
Our Love - Donna Summer/Moroder: More inspiration - and generally the idea of a synth driven dance song with melancholy vocals.
Dirty Talk by Klein and MBO - definitely more influence here. In the instrumentation and in the rhyming structure. The Italians had been playing about with this sort of stuff for a while. Plus the idea of making the whole thing long and recording it as a 12'' maybe.
posted by rongorongo at 12:37 AM on March 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

Blue Monday is Gen X's Freebird

That works for me.

Many memories of listening to "Blue Monday" at night, staring at postindustrial skies.
posted by doctornemo at 7:42 AM on March 8, 2023

I'm actually not that big a fan of Blue Monday, but New Order wrote lots of songs that sound timeless, like Age of Consent which set the indie template like The Kinks set the powerchord template, and Temptation which IMO does the New Order industrial thing better than Blue Monday. If you only know the later version of Temptation (from Trainspotting) the original is way better.

And New Order did write lots of clunker lyrics, but they put out a lot more material than Joy Division too, and the two above and Love Vigilantes all have excellent lyrics, and they have dominating choruses, which is where Joy Division was often kind of weak. Love Vigilantes even has a choose your own interpretation ending, which is hard to pull off.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:53 AM on March 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

How does it feel... bad man ... bad.

Some songs will still sound great even 20... *cough* 40 years later.

mandolin conspiracy ... I at least had seats for that show but still felt the need to sit more than I am comfortable admitting. The Molson amphitheatre really is for the young.... even if they likely don't even know that name.
posted by cirhosis at 8:14 AM on March 8, 2023

I at least had seats for that show but still felt the need to sit more than I am comfortable admitting.

No shit, the Armory in Minneapolis sent out a last minute "hey by the way we have VIP seating upgrades available" the day of the show and boy howdy I raced to buy those tickets. 5 hours on my feet to see Thievery Corporation a month earlier had told me my days of standing for hours to see a show are in my past, and paying an upcharge to have a seat instead of standing on a cement floor was absolutely worth every dollar.

The unfortunate side effect is now I'm sort of trying to figure out which upcoming shows have seating as a baseline, which shows have seating as an option, and which shows are out of my comfort range. Hrmph.
posted by Kyol at 8:26 AM on March 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

"Tell me, now how does it feel

when i press down like this, is it more pressure or pain?"

says my GI doctor, OY
posted by not_on_display at 9:51 AM on March 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

Oh, friend Kyol, I feel you on a deep and personal level. The New Order show in Dallas is basically SRO so I can't do it.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 9:55 AM on March 8, 2023

For months I used to go watch the blac bloc punching Richard Spencer video synced to the Blue Monday intro and it was a joy. Then the video got taken down for “violence.”

Wut (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
posted by toodleydoodley at 10:42 AM on March 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

How do y'all feel about the film 24 Hour Party People?
posted by secretseasons at 10:51 AM on March 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

I could listen to Blue Monday for the thousandst time again today and not be bored. Joy Division/New Order had that rare gift for just hooking into an effective simple poppy melody. I think they're kinda like the Beatles in that respect.

How do y'all feel about the film 24 Hour Party People?

An entertaining biopic that doesn't pretend to be the last word. There's also some interesting footage out there, I'm thinking of the Stephen Morris interviews excerpted in Synth Britannia (?).

Don't forget where Blue Monday got its choir from.

Anecdote has the band feeling pretty bashful when Kraftwerk later called them up asking for permission to sample some drum sounds.

Listen! Fucking frogs!

I think it's also/either Perfect Kiss? Which also has a car crash. The tree frog samples are awesome.
posted by ovvl at 11:42 AM on March 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

I enjoyed the first half of 24 Hour Party Period and the last scene was fun, but all the scenes with the Happy Mondays were annoying.
posted by pxe2000 at 12:05 PM on March 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

I think it's also/either Perfect Kiss? Which also has a car crash. The tree frog samples are awesome.

Uh, I think you're be right and I might be old and have brain fog.
posted by loquacious at 12:06 PM on March 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

I enjoyed the first half of 24 Hour Party Period and the last scene was fun, but all the scenes with the Happy Mondays were annoying.

I agree, though I think they captured the Happy Mondays accurately. It also offers an explanation for the lousy and rushed New Order songs - they were put together to continue funding Factory Records and The Hacienda club.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:21 PM on March 8, 2023

New Order is not a band I'm very familiar with, so when I read loquacious's comment above about Bizarre Love Triangle, I looked it up on youtube. And so it was today, nearly 20 years after I downloaded a copy of the mp3 from some blog, that I learned that Frente's version is a cover. I had no idea!

This wouldn't have happened if you'd named the correct song in the first place, so thank you for your error, loquacious.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 12:26 PM on March 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

A few people have already mentioned tracks that New Order sampled from or were inspired by; this fascinating video shows exactly how those influences were stitched together into the song and the instruments they used, including a couple happy accidents: New Order – Blue Monday Ableton Live Deconstruction @ Sonar +D 2016
posted by googly at 1:38 PM on March 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

I remember the first time I heard Blue Monday was as looped background music for some between-shows bumper full of t'n'a on the Playboy Channel back in 1983 maybe. When I heard the actual song on the radio a while later, my brain didn't quite connect the two until suddenly — O_O oh that's why I know this song!
posted by not_on_display at 3:27 PM on March 8, 2023

If you want to enjoy something with headphones, give Shellshock a listen...sounds so clean...
posted by Chuffy at 5:56 PM on March 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

including a couple happy accidents.
The section (here) about the accidental shifting of the sequenced synth part, one sixteenth off from the drum track - and how that gave the song its groove - is great. Blue Monday always sounds like it was put together on a bunch of electronic devices which each had significant flaws and which were only just getting along with each other. That is probably true - (we hear Sumner had built his own Powertran sequencer from kit, at a point when that was a route open to those who wanted to trade time for money saved - those things never worked all that reliably). However it is the mistake which gives the whole song a feeling of a train in slight danger or de-railing.
posted by rongorongo at 11:51 PM on March 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

I used to love skating to Blue Monday - I used to hang out at a suburban ice rink, and about ten of would skate into the night (all dressed in black) under the black lights into a wall of sound - the rink had a EP and they'd set it on repeat.
posted by unearthed at 12:07 AM on March 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

vibratory, this happened to a lot of people who discovered that Johnny Cash's Hurt is actually a cover of Nine Inch Nails ;-)
posted by Chuffy at 2:00 PM on March 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

all the scenes with the Happy Mondays were annoying

You’re twistin’ my melon, man.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 5:37 PM on March 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

We shouldn't forget Orchestra Obsolete's Blue Monday cover played on 1930s instruments - not just for its ingenuity or the thought of how a song make like tht would have been received then - but also for knocking the length down to about 4 minutes: enough to fit on a 12 inch 78.
posted by rongorongo at 11:49 PM on March 9, 2023 [2 favorites]

New Order are probably my second-favourite lifetime band, and certainly my favourite during teen and twenty-something years. Blue Monday still holds up, and did back then despite the heavy plays. Everything's Gone Green is, for me, a classic that bridges the sounds of Joy Division and New Order (not just because Bernie is playing Ian's guitar).
posted by Wordshore at 3:14 PM on March 16, 2023 [1 favorite]

JWZ's commemorative post has some good links:
https://www.jwz.org/blog/2023/03/fac-seventy-three-forty/
posted by craniac at 11:53 AM on March 22, 2023 [1 favorite]