New Order - Blue Monday

This single hardly needs any introduction. Full of ideas from a recent trip to New York, Steve Morris sat down with a brand new drum machine and programmed what would become New Order's most celebrated song. Re-using elements from their own "5-8-6" and a rhythm nicked from Georgio Moroder, plus Peter Hook's memorable bassline, "Blue Monday" was a distinctly different, idiosyncratic and very British take on the New York club sound. Debate still rages over the meaning of the lyrics, but there's no doubting the power of the groove. Nor is there any doubting the single's achievements: in the UK, it climbed into the top 20 twice in 1983 alone (possibly due to people waiting to buy the album, then finding that "Blue Monday" wasn't on it) and hung around the Top 200 for nearly five years, racking up three quarters of a million sales on its original 12" release alone, and passing the million mark with the help of subsequent remixes. (Bear in mind that the population of the UK is less than a quarter that of the USA, so a million-selling single on home turf alone is a big deal.) "Blue Monday" remains a benchmark, and is still New Order's biggest-selling single both at home and worldwide.

Is it their best, though? To my mind, no. To their credit, what could so easily have been a millstone round their necks actually became a stepping stone to even better things. But I still love "Blue Monday". Who doesn't?