What Were They Thinking?

‘Blue Monday’ was released in 1983 by legendary Manchester pop group ‘New Order’ and saw the band try to distance themselves from their previous iteration ‘Joy Division’.’

They wanted to become a well renowned band in their own right, ‘Blue Monday’ was the bands first step into making this a reality. Everything about ‘Blue Monday’ is mind boggling and brilliant. The song itself is a far cry sonically from what Joy Division were doing and the song today still sounds almost futuristic. The band had fully embraced dance music and synthesisers by this point. Sonically it’s one of the best dance songs ever.

Even the single cover was groundbreaking. Designed to look like a floppy disc. The innovative design by legendary designer Peter Saville, ended up being the most expensive single cover ever! The sleeve was so expensive that every time Factory Records (the label that managed New Order) sold a copy. They lost money! It just so happens that ‘Blue Monday’ is the biggest selling 12 inch single ever!

This is just one of many things that both New Order and Factory Records did that weren’t the most business savvy of ideas.

But it was never about that. ‘Blue Monday’ proved that Peter Hook, Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert had escaped the shadow of Joy Division and became one of the most important British bands ever