Blue Monday 7" - Proof That It Doesn't Exist (?)

Looking through some cuttings earlier, I happened across the following -

"Perusing the unpublished 7-inch only chart the other day I was rather taken aback to find New Order's 'Blue Monday' listed. My surprise was prompted by the assurance that Factory would, under no circumstances, issue the single in this format. A quick call to the company confirmed that no such disc exists. Even radio stations, who usually insist on 7-inch singles, had been serviced with 12-inchers on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. So how did a non-existent single manage to chart?

Apparently, Gallup's computer had been misinformed and decided to split sales. As a result, 'Blue Monday' was place at No. 16 in the 12-inch chart when it actually outsold all other 12-inchers with the exception of Duran Duran and David Bowie."

Alan Jones - Melody Maker 2 April 1983

The BM 83 edit was made with the original vocals - 100% vocoder. Then they "lost" it and they simply overdubbed Barney' voice over the full mix they still had. The BM 83 7" that once appear on mp3 is fake, done by a very cool guy from Israel.

This is all I know.

All the best Pete

This was the infamous "tripping on the mains cable" incident? When the power lead got pulled out of the equipment and wiped the programmed vocals...

Well this is one story. Others say that the vocoder parts were really hard to sequence and when it was done they didn't save (the sampling sequence) or they overwrite the tape channel, something like that...

I heard the story that Barney got obcessed with some demons and frantic with madness he burned the floppy dics.

Never heard any of these stories before. Someone please elaborate... Or tell me the truth.

Andy

I heard Martin Hannett broke into Strawberry Studios one night and ate the master tape.

let me just say that in 1985 i went to a record fair in town and on the wall of one of the shops was a 7" of blue monday it was white with a sky blue design like type of smokey and i recently saw a t shirt with this design on too oh and the single was £30. i couldnt afford it but this looked genuine to me.

bondy wrote: let me just say that in 1985 i went to a record fair in town and on the wall of one of the shops was a 7" of blue monday it was white with a sky blue design like type of smokey and i recently saw a t shirt with this design on too oh and the single was £30. i couldnt afford it but this looked genuine to me.

You may mean this: http://www.niagara.edu/neworder/graphics/bmpola.jpg

Andy

Mr Discography wrote:

bondy wrote: let me just say that in 1985 i went to a record fair in town and on the wall of one of the shops was a 7" of blue monday it was white with a sky blue design like type of smokey and i recently saw a t shirt with this design on too oh and the single was £30. i couldnt afford it but this looked genuine to me.

You may mean this: http://www.niagara.edu/neworder/graphics/bmpola.jpg

Andy

On Niagara is written, that the polish single was released in 1988, 3 years later as Bondy went to the record fair ;)

IT DOES NOT EXIST!

in this day and age and with the internet there is no way that a legit UK 1983 Blue Monday 7" could elude everyone and still remain a mystery.

I Agree with Johnny James, if it did exist somebody here would have it or there would be Information Somwhere on the Internet about it.

yeah me too.

What about the mix of Blue Monday used in the original '83 video, i think it's about 4:33 long, and some kind of edit of the 12" version. I guess that's not proof of a 7", but there was some kind of official edit created at least. I have what sounds like a remastered version of the video edit, and i'll post a you-send-it link or something like that if it's ok with the moderator/spotnick. Considering we won't be getting anything like that on the new singles comp.....

I'm strickly against the idea of including the 7" edit of Blue Monday in the collection. The single was a 12" - that was the initial idea, that was the fact and that was the song. Period.

To hell these games with the past. Give people the real deal. Let them all be 4-minute songs save for BM - that was an exception back then. Why marr it?

A decent clue dug up by Detective Blue, not conclusive but yet more evidence for the case against.

In light of all the resources we have at our disposal today and the fact that NO ONE can produce any image of such a 7" (it's always "I once knew someone in 1984" or "this collector said"), it's really looking less and less likely, isn't it?

It's almost tempting to dig through the archives of the Ceremony Digest. There were some really well-connected NO collectors back in the day who used to post there, guys like Fernando used to be a font of early catalogue knowledge.

:\pimp3:

What about the japanese promo 7" that i believe was sold on ebay a couple of years ago for a few hundred quid,and didn't a certain mr moneybags sultan buy it. Andrew.

there is no dispute about the Japanese one, the question is does a 1983 UK 7" exist in either acetate, test pressing or promo form.

The answer is probably:

acetate - maybe (but no-one has one) test pressing - less likely (again no-one has one) promo - no chance

Obviously wrote: What about the mix of Blue Monday used in the original '83 video, i think it's about 4:33 long, and some kind of edit of the 12" version. I guess that's not proof of a 7", but there was some kind of official edit created at least. I have what sounds like a remastered version of the video edit, and i'll post a you-send-it link or something like that if it's ok with the moderator/spotnick. Considering we won't be getting anything like that on the new singles comp.....

You are correct, but this is not the issue in question. What has always been the arguing point is whether an official 7" single of Blue Monday was issued in the UK.

And to answer Depthy's last point - I bought Blue Monday in 1983. I remember it being in the charts. I remember Radio 1 and the Top 40 only ever playing the 12". I spent most of the mid to late 80's at record fairs and trawling mail order lists. Never seen it.

I dont know about a uk 7" but their definately was a Jap 7" limited addition. I remember someone buying it for £100 plus.

We know about the Japanese promo, the Polish 7" versions and the original video edit. They're all well documented.

The grey area is whether a 7" of BM was ever released in the UK, most likely distributed to a few radio stations to promote it. ie. A 7" promo similar to what they did next with Confusion, although you'd assume a more limited pressing.

Or possibly even a few copies pressed for Factory in-house.

There have been various claims about it over the years, yet no one can come up with anything that resembles hard evidence.

But as far as I know, no one's checked Hooky's closet yet. Legend has it that there are rareities there that would have David Sultan in tears.

:\pimp3:

Old Blue wrote: I spent most of the mid to late 80's at record fairs and trawling mail order lists.

Your mother must have been very worried.

:\pimp3:

depthcharge wrote:

Old Blue wrote: I spent most of the mid to late 80's at record fairs and trawling mail order lists.

Your mother must have been very worried.

:\pimp3:

hahahahahahaha...ha...

You are correct, but this is not the issue in question. What has always been the arguing point is whether an official 7" single of Blue Monday was issued in the UK.

And to answer Depthy's last point - I bought Blue Monday in 1983. I remember it being in the charts. I remember Radio 1 and the Top 40 only ever playing the 12". I spent most of the mid to late 80's at record fairs and trawling mail order lists. Never seen it.

I believe that there was no official 7" UK for any of the Blue Monday releases (83, 88, 95 etc). I have a copy of the Polish 7", and it contains the same standard 12" A- and B-side mixes - just pressed onto 7" and played at 33rpm.

are any of these 83 7" edits real edits anyway? or just some studio hack chopping the song down for some purpose, anybody could do that... i don't think that counts as a real 7" single mix.
I agree with barcodedude, the whole Factory position was that "BM" was a full 12", like it or not. hell, i think, just to be perverse, that they should have thrown the full 12" of "Perfect Kiss" on this collection also, if the short version is just going to be the same as the album... the full 12" is one of the few major things still left off of CD after this...

I don't think anyone's still arguing that there was a commercial 7" release of BM83 are they? Surely we'd know all about this by now if there was one. The question is only whether any UK promo 7"s were ever pressed, like they were for the follow-up in Confusion.

Jim, there was a commercial 7" release of BM88 in several countries and a promo only 7" release of BM95. I've got copies of both a few feet away from me.

:\pimp3: