1988 05 14 New Order NME

TELL ME, HOW DOES IT FEEL?

The best-selling 12" of all time! Two million copies world wide! Five years on from its original release (four spent in the Top 200), NEW ORDER’S 'Blue Monday’ has finally gone Top five. NME reports.

NEW ORDER and the 'Blue Monday' syndrome: the NME fact-ory remix

“THE INITIATIVE came from America, from Quincy Jones and his record company Qwest,” says New Order manager Rob Gretton of the remixed/repackaged 'Blue Monday 88’. “It’s been remixed for America, he wanted a blacker feel for American radio, the bass sequencer is softer”.

Gretton - long-time Joy Division/New Order associate - seems unsurprised by the astonishing, renewed British success of the band’s ’83 release.

“None of us were really that interested, because the record’s five years old. But no one was against it being remixed. The band did a video for it, and they went in and recorded over-dubs, but Quincy didn’t use the re-recorded vocals or drums. The thing is, it had never been a hit in America, and we decided to release the remix here because people would want it and would have to pay the £6-£7 import price.

“The success here I think, is due to a combination of there being a seven inch available for the first time, and better promotion, and because there’s a video.”

However, true Order addicts will still want the US 12" import; whereas the British release is backed by 'Beach Buggy’, the American features a Quincy Jones remix of 'Touched By The Hand Of God’.

But what about the Sunkist deal, I ask Gretton. It seems strange that a band of New Order’s style and status should have agreed to rework 'Blue Monday’ for an orange juice advert., Bassist Peter Hook told Spin magazine that “we tried it and it sounded so bad that we couldn’t let them have it. We tried singing the changed lyrics and we started rolling around on the floor. They were offering us a fortune but the cringe part was too heavy”. Yet, according to Gretton, Barney did “re-sing the vocals... I don’t think he knew what was happening”.

Naturally there’s been wild rumours of mega-bucks, dollars in the seven figure range, being thrown at the band to secure 'Orange Monday’. Gretton, predictably, Quashes these rumours.

“No deal’s been done, nothing’s actually been confirmed... Anyway, now it’s been done Sunkist might not use it.”

What are the Sunkist lyrics?

“I honestly don’t remember ... and if I did I wouldn’t tell you,” laughs the Manchester mandarin, “someone rewrote the lyrics but it wasn't New Order.”

Are they totally crap?

“Well... they’re certainly very commercial!"

'BLUE MONDAY’was the watershed for New Order, as they moved surely from the Crem into Clubland.

It saw them step out from the divine shadows of Factory blackness and away from the spectre of Ian Curtis; it saw them seriously address a dancefloor cluttered with Pigbags and blinded by scientists. Rather than use man-machines to sound space-age and robotic, New Order succeeded in making computerised music emotional, in balancing disturbing technology perfectly against Albrecht’s frail human voice.

New Order had cut with their past, tidying away their erratic first two years without Curtis into the 'New Order 1981-81’ 12" mini album. They’d made the break with Joy Div-producer Hannett at 'Everything’s Gone Green’ in December ’81, and then created 'Temptation’ with Pete Wolliscroft’s technical aid. But 'Blue Monday’ was New Order’s first real self-produced offering, and the marble-and-stone sleeves gave way to floppy disc dress.

The basic 'Blue Monday’ riffs and rhythms had been around since early ’81 titled 'Prime 5.8.6’. Recorded in February ’82 for the opening of Factory’s Hacienda club, it became simply '5.8.6’ by the time of its Peel Session airing (broadcast June 1’82), and ended up as the Side One closer on 'Power Corruption & Lies’: “I see danger, danger, danger. . .” '5.8.6’, which also mothered 'Ultraviolence’ on 'PCL’, finally gave birth to 'Blue Monday’ in the studio in October ’82.

Deliberately dark and mysterious, 'Blue Monday’ was created in the grim Falklands spring of’82. With its rapid-fire drumming, its space invader exocet effects, its requiem chorals and its echoes of Spaghetti Western soundscapes, 'Blue Monday’ in retrospect sounds like the perfect dancetrack for a pointless war. “I see a ship in the harbour/I can and shall obey . . . " Drawing on the “blood in the streets up to my ankles” refrain of The Doors’ 'Peace Frog’/'Blue Monday’ medley, it seems to link the Pearl Harbour bombing of Monday December 8 1941 with the sinking of the Belgrano - news which broke in Britain on Monday May 3 1982. And the opening lyrics - “How does it feel?” (the original title for 'Power Corruption & Lies’) - echo Crass’ anti-Thatcher Falklands taunt, 'How Does It Feel (To Be The Mother Of 1,000 Dead)?’

Rumour also had it, at the time of its release, that the song was about Campus Suicides in the ’50s; six students, broken-hearted and seeking solace in the black American blues number 'Blue Monday’, apparently topped themselves one weekend in, er, Sweden.

New Order manager Bob Gretton rejects the Falklands/Doors theory—“you’d have to ask Barney about that” - but reckons there’s some truth in the Swedish students’ suicide theory: “'Blue Monday’ was a track by Fats Domino in the ’50s but I think the title actually came from a book by someone like Arthur Koestler”.

Whatever the origins, “digitially recorded” and in take-it-or-leave-it 12" format only - a pioneering move in those still forty-fived days; most DJs left it! - the user friendly 'Blue Monday’ stumbled out into the world on March 9 1983. “It calls itself a double A-side but it’s a double B-side,” wrote Julie
Burchill in her NME singles review. “. . . A moony Papist chant”.

Without promotion, and unpopular with seven-inch lovin’ Radio One jocks, it sold 250,000 copies and reached No 12 in the charts; re-issued, after a summer in the clubs, it went Top Ten in October ’83 and sold over one million worldwide by the end of the year. Hell, New Order even played live on TOTP!

As a single it carried New Order light year’s away from Joy Division in terms of sound, sentiments, production and projection. From the desperate beauty of 'Love Will Tear Us Apart’ to the synthesised storm of 'Blue Monday’ in just three years is alarming progress, never mind the chaotic Arthur Baker/Jellybean 'Confusion’ mixes that stuttered forth that summer.

Since ’83 it’s been in-the-club, non-stop-dancing for Hook, Morris, Gilbert, and Dicken/Albrecht/Sumners; meshes of man with the machine, master-mixes of the ridiculous and the sublime: 'Shellshock’, 'Murder’, 'Thieves Like Us’, 'State Of The Nation’. . . So it’s really no surprise that Quincy Jones and Sunkist should be next stop for their perfect popmobile (“Sunkist is the one” instead of “How does it feel?’)

'Blue Monday ’88’ is, of course, criminally tarted up, softened and sweetened for mass consumption. It follows the grim trend started by Stephen Hague with 'True Faith’ of reducing Hook’s bass penetration - those glorious tum-rumbles that Mozzer’s nicked for 'Everyday Is Like Sunday’ - to clot the grooves with squeals, mumblings, and Sparky’s search for the Lost Chord.

'The Beach’, now 'Beach Buggy’, is equally tampered with - the chill winds, religious chants and bombers giving way to 'Kiss’ riffs, the strains of someone (Quincy?) having a crap and miscellaneous mad cackling (the ghost of Ian Curtis?).

Still, if it sells orange juice..

Len Brown

“THEY’VE BEEN huge on the club scene in New York right from the beginning of hip-hop - stuff like ’Blue Monday’ and 'confusion ’ were played by all the big dance stations but they didn’t really mean much outside of New York. I kinda think every record they’ve made could have broken them nationally if they'd wanted to make a few changes . . . I like them cos they work for no one but themselves - they only do what they want to and that messes them up for airplay and stuff. . . For a long time they just thumbed their noses at the american music industry, like 'we’ll do our own thing, period. That’ll do for a while but you gotta decide whether you want people to hear your stuff or if you wanna sit at home listening to your own tapes . . . New Order never really cared about those kind of decisions.”

Arthur Baker January ’88

“THE STUFF I like is kinda state of the art - New Order or Art Of Noise. People expect me to be a hip-hop producer exclusively but I'd like to work with those guys in New Order cos when I heard 'Blue Monday’ I could see they understood dance music. That’s been one of the biggest club records in New York - you go to any dance club and you’ll here that played tonight. It’s like a dance standard. State of the art.’’

Kurtis Mantronik 1987

'Blue' trivia

• It was originally written to test the band’s new drum machine.
• Despite its immense success, the band have received no platinum or gold discs for the record, because Factory aren’t in the BPI.
• The release of the remix now means the song is available as; original 12", extra track on the cassette of 'Power, Corruption And Lies’, remix 12", remix 7", and CD single.
• The band once encored with a version of Divine’s 'Love Reaction’, sung by their roadie.
• After the release of the remix, Anne Nightingale read out many complaining letters from irate purists. She then played the remix of 'Temptation’ by mistake.
• The B-side, 'The Beach’, a semi-instrumental version of 'Blue Monday’, has now been used on Opportunity Knocks as backing music for a dance routine. The dance troupe concerned lost. Coincidentally, Steven Morris is an ex ballroom dancer!
• The remix sold more copies in one week than the original did over two years.
• It has sold over 800,000 in the UK and 2,000,000 worldwide.
• It got to no. 12 the first time and 9 the next, both in 1983, and has been in the top 200 for the past four years without a pause.
• It’s the only record ever to have been in the top 500 in every year since 1983.
• Factory records’ nightclub The Hacienda makes it a rule never to play 'Blue Monday’, despite the record’s success having almost singlehandedly kept the club financially afloat.
• The original sleeve is a reproduction of a computer floppy disc.
• It initially lost money, because as 12" it brings in lp per unit of sales.
• It was recorded beneath the Post Office Tower at Advision Studios.
• The band reportedly once claimed that 'Blue Monday’ is a ripoff of disco diva Sylvester’s classic 'You Make Me Feel Mighty Real’.They admit to ripping off Hot Chocolate’s 'Emma’ for 'Thieves Like Us’, but nevertheless hid from Erroll Brown when they found themselves sharing a studio with him last year.
• The record is available in Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela (but not Peru!), Japan, Hong Kong, Poland, Spain, Greece and Israel. Until last week when Factory Zimbabwe folded, you could get it in Harare.
• 'Blue Monday’, the original, is only available on a Rough Trade import in the USA.
• A spokesperson for Factory told NME, “The weather’s lovely in Didsbury today.”

David Quantick

WIN! Mega-rare versions of 'Monday'

RIGHT, YOU'VE read all about the best 12" in the history of the universe, now here's your chance to win a super-rare 7"version plus other top train-spotting items! Yes, your ever-generous NME has a single sod-the-runner-ups prize for the winner of this compette. The goodie bag consists of; one minty new Polish-issued 7" which couples 'Blue Monday' and the equally brill 'Thieves Like Us'. .. one single-sided German radio-only promotional 7" of 'Confusion' in hideous purple vinyl.. . and a US-only 10" flexi featuring a 'CD-Remix' if 'Shame Of The Nation'. All you have to do to get your hands onto these nose-bleedingly exciting items isto answer the following question:

What tin-pot Third World resistance movement provided them with their name?

Answers to: BLUE MONDAY, NME, 4th FLOOR, COMMONWEALTH HOUSE, 1-19 NEW OXFORD STREET, LONDON WC1A