Blue Monday turns 40

Released 7th March 1983, wow seems like yesterday.

Was a life changing experience for your truly, aged 15 at the time. Up until this it had been all Visage, Ultravox, Duran Duran, the usual hipster dross you try to impress with at school. BM made them all irrelevant, and started me off as real music nut. Can still recall buying the earlier NO and JD stuff that summer, all at Subway Records (long gone) on West St in Brighton. Happy days.

 

Still sounds as fresh today, massive track.

 

How does it feel?

 

no idea, but 12" record is the only version to go for

 

When a new day has begun
When you’re drinking in the sunshine
Sunkist is the one...



Not sure if they were ever paid the $200,000 for doing that.

 

Let's have it then:

 

In the original video, for the vintage Apple owners...



...Zaxxon on the Apple II port, at 2:15.

 

And Blue Monday wouldn't have been Blue Monday had it not been for Enio Morricone and the tense riff he composed for the Serge Leone film For A Few Dollars More.

 

A record I had already heard more than often enough by April 1983.

 

Nice loud spin here

 

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/mar/07/forty-years-of-new-order-blue-monday-inspirations

 

"Our Tune". This is the first song Mrs seagull and I danced to...

 

As well as Blue Monday’s distinctive Oberheim DMX thump, the Vako Orchestron (mentioned above for its use on Kraftwerk’s Uranium, sampled on FAC 73) is another for the synth shopping list.

The spooky choir comes from the optical Vocal Choir disc fed into the Orchestron...



A letter from Ralf, requesting a custom model.

 

Like Pink Floyd went disco.

 

Interesting read. A couple of thoughts:

Moroder is definitely an inspiration, but I thought it was "The Chase" from the "Midnight Express" soundtrack that was the main inspiration.



I'd always thought PSB's "In the Night" was moer influenced by the chord sequence from John Carpenter's theme for "Assault on Precinct 13".

ISTR reading an article in the dim and distant that they used an Osborne 1 as the sequencer and the original 'encore' track that it was meant to be was composed on it, only for it to crash and lose the data. B*ggerd if I can find that source.

 

You may enjoy Warren Huart's Produce Like a Pro episode on it.

 

Surprised to see Petridis pushing the lazy myth of the Bellville Three, they didn't even invent Detroit techno, never mind techno.

 

Same here, I was a big New Order fan back then, I purchased all the 1980’s albums on release and saw them live in January 1982 and August 1984.
But for some reason I sold all my 12” singles around 1990, and they included some good ‘uns, including Joy Division, The Cure, Gang of Four as well as New Order, and would probably be worth quite a tidy sum now.