Everything You Know About “Blue Monday” is Probably Wrong I New British Canon

Emerging out of the embers of Joy Division, New Order spent the 1980s smashing together the worlds of punk and disco. In 1983 they gave the world a shuddering party starter that took elements from Black Gay club music, Giorgio Moroder, Kraftwerk, Spaghetti Westerns and British melancholy. Such a revolution in sound that “Blue Monday” perhaps became the biggest selling 12 inch single of all time.

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 (https://soundcloud.com/luarbeats)
Jesse Gallagher - The Golden Present
Luar - Anchor (https://soundcloud.com/luarbeats)

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