blue monday interpretations

dear all,

i am about to write an article about "blue monday". i have already found quite a few comments on the net, but i'd be very thankful, if some of you experts could help me out, too. all facts, rumours and quotations plus links to topic-related sites are more than welcome.

cheers in advance for your help, sonja

grat, thanks. how do i find him? i am pretty new here...

He's winding you up Sonja, DM is legendary for his rather irrational hatred of Blue Monday. I think it's fair to say that Blue Monday isn't the most popular track amongst the hardcore, despite it being quite good

I second that old monkey - though one can get full on cake if that's the only thing consumed.

You may want to check out the New Order Discography Sonja. It's found at http://www.niagara.edu/neworder, there are some facts about the all time classic track.

/TLV

i see. and i find it quite understandable that blue monday is not the most popular no-song. but nevertheless it was a pretty well selling one...

i already figured that people here would not really appreciate me locking in and asking questions about this one song, but nevertheless that's the info i need. sorry.

what else i need is bands inspired by new order. the newer the better. i already have quite a long and confusing list but i find it pretty hard to argue in what way bloc party might be informed by them, for instance. it's all those classifications that make me crazy. and time is getting kind of short.

i hope you understand i am not trying to get on your nerves. this is just a kind of desperate situation.

Do you have Retro? The booklet discusses the origins of Blue Monday.

tlv, thanks a lot. and to everyone else helpful, as well.

Blue Monday was such an atypical song for New Order to write when they did write it, though they had been pushing back various electronic barriers for a year or so when they did write it. It isn't really a reflection on what they have done since, at no stage have they stood still in their songwriting, and there hasn't really been anything since (besides Shellshock) that could almost play itself.

Lots of bands have drawn inspiration from New Order, but not that many from Blue Monday itself. The only real New Order trademarks in the song are that bass sound and the string synth sweeps that they have often used. I suppose using the bass as a melody instrument, and using the guitar as a rhythm instrument more often than not is something that a lot of bands have identified with since the early 1980's, not many have come close to getting the sound right yet stamping their own identity on such music.

Originally posted by twist Do you have Retro? The booklet discusses the origins of Blue Monday.

thanks again. i don't have retro, unfortunately...

It is Utter Bollocks Nuf said

thanks again. i don't have retro, unfortunately...

From Retro's booklet.

Blue Monday Bernard - I fucking hate Blue Monday. We've played it too much. It's not really a song. It was an experiment in technology. Hooky - It does get on my tits. I quite like it live though. Bernard - We never used to do encores. We used to play for forty minutes and go offstage. It wasn't arrogance. It was just that when we went to concerts we got bored after forty minutes, we wanted something else to happen. So we thought, with all this technology coming out, it's possible that the machines could play a song, so we could just come and press a button and that way,we would not have to do an encore, but the audience would get one and that'll confuse them and they'll all fuck off. Steve - It didnot always work. Bernard - I remember when we played in Boston in the early's 80's. We played the usual, no encore. We came offstage, got the Pernod out, started relaxing,next thing we knew these riot police walked in the door. "We're here to protect you". We were like "What from?" "The riot". Stupid road crew. Nobody even told us the crowd were rioting, they just started packing up the gear. The crowd had ripped the place apart. The we went outside and we got chased down the street. We got a phone call from the president of warner brothers the next war asking us what the fuck was going on. Hooky - So we started doing encores. Bernard - We started doing encores. But anyway, Blue Monday had developped out of that. Except that it could not just be machines because Hooky likes playing his bass, so he really wanted to go on. And then we need a vocal, so we thought, how are we going to do that? Steve - I recorded a robot vocal on the machines but it got wiped. Bernard - The engineer did it by mistake. It didnot sound very good anyway, it sounded like the speaking clock. So I had to sing.

There are rumours saying that it's called Blue Monday because Ian curtis died on a Monday. Or that the song is actually about the Malouines War. But I guess nearly everybody here think there rumours are bullshit and that the song is about nothing really.