Everything You Know About “Blue Monday” is Probably Wrong I New British Canon

In Hook's New Order book he talks about how Substance came to be. Tony Wilson had just used some Factory money to buy a new Jaguar with a CD player. He wanted to listen to Blue Monday in his car, but New Order famously did not put singles on LPs. So they did an LP (available on CD) that compiled old singles.

absolutely nowhere near as good as joy division.

Great song and great memories in the toronto club scene

kinda funny new order was microdosing acid before it was cool

When you put together awesome music, eventually you will get noticed and have a hit single. Joy Division and New Order were doing "ok" in the late 70's/early 80s, but this song on 12" put them on the global map. I first heard the song in 1987 and have owned it on cassette, CD and mp3 and gets a listen at least every few months for almost 37 years!

Spectacular. Super inspiring

OMG I loooooove Dirty Talk and always wondered if it had an influence on Blue Monday! Dirty Talk is such a great arrangement.

This is pretty interesting, but also it's like who cares this song is easily forgettable. Your explanation of how the song was made is more valuable and entertaining than the actual song. While that's cool, I feel like your research and video editing talents would be better used with better music played by people who can play instruments and are good at it.

Great documentary and ty for it BUT you and others never speak about the pads/strings thing.
Love will never tears… without the arp omni2 would have been really different
As well as atmosphère or in a lonely place or age of consent
I’am looking forward to someone talking about those pads (voyetra, arp, solina,…) that brought a lot to these 80’s sounds

This episode is perfect. Thank you.

Best channel ever ❤

Brilliant video, New Order are by far my most loved band of all time. Thanks for this

Would you ever consider doing a similar documentary on Electronic? The Sumner/Marr/Tennant linkup created one of the best albums I've ever heard in their self-titled debut album

I’m new here and must say that this was an incredibly well crafted documentary. I was unaware of just how many musical influences went into this single track. I’ll never hear it the same again. Thanks for the awesome content!

I only got to know "Blue Monday" in 1988, when I was about 14. A radio station I used to listen to had an ad playing the song for a new local dance club, and I quite literally went a bit out of my mind for a few days wanting to know what that was. Then my friend told me something called Substance had just been released and I went and bought that double vinyl based on that song alone. Over 35 years later, I still listen to this song about once a month and it secured a place in my "top 20 desert island songs" list. (I also recorded a "Blue Monday" cover using an "imaginary rock band" configuration and, while it didn't come out quite as expected, is still a great proof-of-concept that I'd love to bring to the real world with a real band.)

This is super interesting! So many things I didnt know about this song. Thanks!

Time to dust off my New Order collection.

I remember being obsessed with Joy Division in the early 90s over New Order when they were actually happening. I didn't come to love them until my mid 20s.
I think cold Cave is their best modern equivalent.

Just started getting into New Order coming from Joy Division's music. Any recommendations on where to start?

One of the best lines I’ve ever heard about Joy Division vs The Pistols was this — “The Pistols screamed F U. whereas Joy Division realized that WE were effed” They captured the despair and failure of the working class people of Britain who had won the war and yet were devastated by post war political betrayal of the working class

Martin Hammett stole massive $$$ from the band and he was drunk and stoned all the time. Those first recordings are miracles. Also, New Order has their own sound entirely, which is amazing during that era. They are the best post punk/new wave band of their era (and I will highly praise Birmingham boys Duran Duran as well who are fabulous musicians)

Unsurprisingly the Buke and Gase cover of Blue Monday gets overlooked. If you are sleeping on Buke and Gase; you are missing out.

One of New Order’s primary influences you didn’t mention…Hawkwind. They took the same approach albeit with a larger pallet of sounds to work with and Hawkwind were definitely an early “rave” band…

'Ceremony', is mentioned in passing, as if it is not one of the greatest achievements of both JD and NO.

I never liked that stuff. The more electronics, the less guitars - no thanks. No real drums, just bum-bum-bum 4/4. Exeption was Kraftwerk....

so that was BS about them losing money every time a copy of blue monday was sold! that's hilarious
great video. really good.

I love this song happy it cam out like it did happy accidents made awesome song

I didn’t expect this story to include GERRY & THE HOLOGRAMS (a classic Absurd Records release)… 48 Chairs ‘Snap It Around’ 7inch being another classic. Love the Manchester scene!

crystal is my favorite new order song

I always though "blue" Monday meant the sad day after Ian's death on Sunday, and how they were told to feel about it

Hook destroyed New Order.

Another excellent documentary!

"It allegedly sounded like a rapping Dalek"
I would love to hear that just out of my childhood fascination w/ Daleks 😆

PhD level analysis of the world greatest band ever (fuck you U2). The narration voice is excellent and the presentation style is spot one. So entertaining and informative that, I can only imagine this took Trash Theory months to compile and record. Just brilliant.

Damn, The Biggest Turd In The Universe actually "repeatedly offered to replace Ian Curtis after his death". My God.

I bought the the famous 'holey' 12" at a record shop on New York City's 4th street sometime in 1983 not knowing what it was, since there's no text on it at all. I just loved the sleeve design. Of course when I got it home and played the record, I was blown away. Best dance track of all time. And I still have that record!

Our love… will last forever! 💁🏽‍♀️

excellent video as always

New Order did some OG genre defining move with Blue Monday, and any fan of synthpop, new wave and eventually synthwave should be immensely grateful for that.

Great video!

Well done, thanks!

I’ve never gotten sick of this song (or any New Order or Joy Division song) and I get sick of most songs.

“Ian Curtis hung himself”. It’s ‘hanged’. And you should NEVER indicate how somebody has ended their own life. It’s irresponsible in the extreme.

I was at the Concert in Australia.
On ‘it’ I didn’t realise the moment until I watched this-
I confess to an element of forgetfulness.
Bugger. But did get anxious to buy the 12’ when it finally arrived.
It’s still floating around somewhere.
You’ll be pleased to know it would be next to an unopened‘Warsaw” pressing.
I’d totally forgotten about all this.
Then like a flash - it’d completely returned.

awesome video

This is your best work, an impeccable documentary of one of the greatest songs ever. Excellent video

I've always loved their music.
Also: If you like this kind of music and the kind of content by "Trash Theory", And, you haven't seen it, I'd highly recommend watching "24 Hour Party People" It's a real gem.

I was 13 when blue Monday came out and a futurist , remember them ? , and the casual lads all thought it was a disco tune of theirs , when it's really a futurist anthem . it wasn't an electro beat boy tune
. futurist and black clothed .

I’d love to see you do a video on The Carpenters!