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Monday 7 February 2022

(Blue) Monday's Long Song

There are songs that you can think you've heard enough, that despite loving them since your youth you never really need to actively pull them out and play in full. At a gig or a night out or heard in passing from a shop/ radio/ car they still hit the spot and sound like they used to but there's not much more you can get from them. Sometimes I feel like that about Blue Monday. Then Soulwax/ Too Many DJs did a remix of Blue Monday for the BBC 6 Desert Island Disco a couple of weeks ago, taking the mastertapes, some snippets from interviews, a live performance and turning it into an extended twenty minute version, the familiar sounds- Hooky's Ennio Morricone inspired bassline, the DMX drum pattern, the whooshing sounds, the choir sample (Kraftwerk), the sequencer, Bernard's vocal (from a variety of sources), the handclaps- re- ordered. 


The story of Blue Monday is so familiar to New Order fans- Stephen forgetting to save the original drum pattern, the encore avoiding intention, the die- cut Peter Saville sleeve and floppy disc inspiration for that, the loss on each copy sold despite it being the best selling 12" of 1983, Kraftwerk's dropped jaws at seeing the equipment New Order managed to invent the future on- and it's all part of the history of the record. Sometimes you just need to hear the record afresh. Soulwax have managed to pull that trick off. 

Here's the B-side from that original 12", their own instrumental remix of Blue Monday from 1983 and always worth a spin, giving the familiar a different slant. 

The Beach

In February 2002 (twenty years ago next week if you really want to feel old) Kylie Minogue played this at The Brits, the glorious, irreverent lovechild of her smash hit and New Order's.

Can't Get Blue Monday Out Of My Head

3 comments:

Martin said...

The scary thing is that more time has now passed since the Kylie mash-up than elapsed between the original release and Kylie's take on it.

John Medd said...

Oh yes! Right up my strasse.

JC said...

Thanks for the heads-up on the Soulwax version. Noted for future listening.....