Not as good as "True Faith"So a couple of days ago, I wrote about how I'd gotten two books, yadda yadda, and in talking about the Factory Records book, I mentioned the sleeve for the 12-inch version of New Order's smash 1983 single, "Blue Monday" [video]. However, at that time, I didn't post a photo link to the sleeve itself. So, as you may have already have figured out, I posted it above.
So let's talk about "Blue Monday."
Interestingly enough, "Blue Monday", famous though its original incarnation might have been, may be more familiar to members of my (our) generation due to a very faithful cover by these guys:
Yup, these douchebags (Orgy, as if you didn't know) managed to take their version of "Blue Monday" [video],the second single off of their regrettably titled debut, Candyass, all the way to no. 4 on the Modern Rock charts in 1999. (In fact, 1998-99 was an extremely auspicious time for young bands trying to break through with covers of '80s pop standards - you may remember another set of up-and-coming douchebags hitting it big right around the same time:)
Anyways, if you had K-Rock (the Rock is Back, btw) bumpin' in yo Taurus or your LeSabre (R.I.P.) around that time, Orgy's "Blue Monday" was a fixture, sounding vaguely familiar, but since Kurt Cobain outlawed "gay" '80s synthpop, no one knew that the song wasn't originally theirs to begin with. Henceforth, as Orgy's stock inevitably declined (say, anybody remember Incubus?), their hooky one-hit wonder faded from memory, gone but never quite forgotten.
Luckily for me, my ignorance was never publicly exposed, like one of those kids apocryphally quoted as saying "Wow, this old dude is covering Nirvana!" during David Bowie's 1995 tour opening for Nine Inch Nails. I just wised up at some point, I don't exactly remember when, so it must not have been much of a "
I also don't remember when I bought my first New Order album, but I do remember that it was Power, Corruption & Lies (which also has a terrific sleeve) and that I was already in college at the time. PC&L is a fantastic sophomore record, marking the consolidation of New Order as a unit distinct from the Joy Division legacy (here, here), and massively influential in its own right. "Blue Monday" was not initially included on PC&L, as per the British custom of omitting material from albums that had already been released in other formats. However, because the singles didn't always, or often, make their way to the American marketplace, the hits would often be inconspicuously tucked into U.S. releases to promote sales (hence the U.S. and U.K. versions of The Clash's debut album, or the total mish-mash that is The Beatles' early discography). Nowadays, I imagine that all CD issues of PC&L include "Blue Monday", as mine does.
My personal feelings about the song itself are complicated. First, there is the taint-by association with Orgy, though oddly enough I can listen to George Michael's "Faith" without vomiting in my mouth. Secondly, there is the fact that there are no fewer than four songs in the New Order catalogue itself that sound like "Blue Monday", either by accident or design. Two of these are on PC&L, "5 8 6", which basically chops the main "Blue Monday" beat/synth-line into a far from unrecognizable new configuration, and "The Beach" a straight-forward instrumental reworking of "Blue Monday" which was the single's initial B-side. "Everything's Gone Green", an earlier single released in December 1981, is essentially a rough draft of "Blue Monday", with an extremely similar vocal melody during the hook, an identical beat, and the same shuffling synth. Rounding out the quartet is "Blue Monday 1988", a superfluous remix produced by Quincy Jones and released as an A-side in the eponymous year. Finally, the song is long and extremely repetitive, meaning that, while it's great on the dancefloor (although I don't believe I've ever heard it on an actual dancefloor), it's a complete momentum killer when simply listened to in situ. Nowadays, I listen to my New Order Singles compilation far more than PC&L, and I say with little shame that I usually skip to "Confusion" every time.
In defense of "Blue Monday", it must be acknowledged that the track is a brilliant sythpop single, conveying the ability of electronic music to communicate as broad an emotional palette as more organic pop forms. Joy Division had shown the way, both on legendary single "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and, to a greater extent, "Atmosphere" [video], but "Blue Monday" kicked open the door, expertly marrying the New York dancefloor sound to their underlying post-punk aesthetic, a formula which would yield a slew of classic singles between 1982 and 1987 - a run matched perhaps only by The Beatles at the height of their powers. Certainly others approximated New Order's success, most notably Depeche Mode and, to a lesser extent, The Cure (who, to be fair, really only dabbled in synthpop qua synthpop), but it's debatable as to whether these peers scaled the same aesthetic heights.
I should also make it clear that the critical consensus on "Blue Monday" relative to the rest of the New Order catalogue and pop music as a whole is a little bit murky. In Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, New Order only rates one entry (against a modest six for U2), "Bizarre Love Triangle" at No. 201. In a poll of the 100 greatest singles of the 1980s conducted on the venerable I Love Music message board, a site frequented by critics, artists, pop enthusiasts, and other such cognoscenti, New Order placed six times, with "Blue Monday" appearing only behind "Temptation" among their entries. The New Musical Express placed the song 20th in a 2002 poll of the 100 greatest singles ever.
Reaction to "Blue Monday" at the time of its release was also mixed. In the 1983 Village Voice Pazz & Jop singles poll, the song doesn't place at all, although PC&L reaches No. 23 on the albums side. The NME was, perhaps unsurprisingly, more excited about "Blue Monday", slotting it at No. 5 for the year, behind "Billie Jean", a James Brown song I've never heard of, an inferior Elvis Costello track (included no doubt for its anti-Thatcherite political content), and, erm, The Birthday Party's The Bad Seed EP, which I own, and can tell you is not better than "Blue Monday".
My personal favorite New Order single is 1987's "True Faith" [video] (complete with iconic dichromat leaf sleeve); running neck-and neck for second place are debut single "Ceremony" (1981) and "Bizarre Love Triangle" (1986).
For people who subscribe to the adage that writing about music is like dancing about architecture and are interested in having a listen to New Order for themselves, I strongly recommend 1987's Substance compilation, which covers the most fertile period in the band's distinguished career. While there certainly were peaks following Substance's issue (most notably 1989's Ibiza-influenced Technique album and the singles "Touched By the Hand of God" [video], "Round & Round" [video], and "Regret" [video]), the big hits are mostly there, with a number of tracks appearing in superior mixes not to be found on later compilations. Additionally, for the more adventurous, I recommend 1988's companion Joy Division retrospective, also titled Substance (another example of Factory's concept fetish). While the band only recorded two proper albums prior to Ian Curtis' suicide, 1979's Unknown Pleasures and 1980's Closer, only Substance compiles the trio of singles that mark Joy Division as a legendary and influential group: "Transmission", "Atmosphere", and "Love Will Tear Us Apart" - the latter of which may be the greatest rock and roll side ever laid to tape.
