'Blue Monday' is 40 years old ...

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Yeh I'm a MASSIVE fan and the LP/12" of Fine Time is my favourite New Order track. There's just so much going on and it's totally perfect hard-edged house. Nothing sounds like it, even remotely.

I used to really quite like Fine TIme when it came out. Even bought a copy.
Boy has it dated. Sounds really cheesy.

 

[krtek a houby]

Loved Blue Monday at the time, but eventually Thieves Like Us took precedence in my heart.

 

[keybored]

The best song for caning it on yer Bauers/Roces back then.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Loved Blue Monday at the time, but eventually Thieves Like Us took precedence in my heart.

I love the albums, a bit meh about most of the singles. Thieves Like Us is great though, and Touched By The Hand Of God.

 

[Throbbing Angel]

Have they made any money off it yet? I had the original 12'' with the floppy disk sleeve that cost them so much once.

iirc they lost 10p every time they sold a copy of the original 12" because of that cover - I seem to remember Peter Savile saying that in an interview and that it was his fault because he designed the floppy disk cover and cutting that hole out cost loads as it meant they needed an inner sleeve too

 

[Voley]

iirc they lost 10p every time they sold a copy of the original 12" because of that cover - I seem to remember Peter Savile saying that in an interview and that it was his fault because he designed the floppy disk cover and cutting that hole out cost loads as it meant they needed an inner sleeve too

It is funny. Sort of sums up Factory really. They must've broke even now though, surely. I'm thinking all those 88 remixes / royalties etc.

Still. It does make me laugh. That and The Happy Mondays breaking the hanging office table that cost 25 grand.

 

[Voley]

I was never a fan of the '88 remixes much. Although I do have a soft spot for Hardfloor's update of it with the ace build-up bit.

5.15 onwards:

 

[Spandex]

I was never a fan of the '88 remixes much

Yeah, the 88 mix was pointless (except to sell some more records).

If you're gonna remix a classic tune, do something wild or different with it. Don't just make basically the same tune only 20% shitter.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Blue Monday 88 is way too cluttered. The original is pretty much as perfect a track as you can get. I'm not sure it's my favourite New Order song but there isn't a better one imo. And it somehow sounds contemporary four decades on.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

iirc they lost 10p every time they sold a copy of the original 12" because of that cover - I seem to remember Peter Savile saying that in an interview and that it was his fault because he designed the floppy disk cover and cutting that hole out cost loads as it meant they needed an inner sleeve too

They always talked about making more of a loss every time they sold one and it would have been better for them if it had not done so well . . . but it's not like they printed up a copy every time someone bought one. They had already laid out the cash to get it all printed and cut, it was better to at least get them all sold and get back as much money as they could.
It's all bollocks anyway. It's a Tony Wilson publicity story. It cost more than usual and would have made a loss in a short run, but huge numbers were cut and printed and the cost adjusted in sales and deals. Even under normal circumstances unsold records and various profits and losses are taken into account. Do you think that a company like Factory didn't know the price the printers were asking and what the returns would be before they sent it out?

 

[Steel Icarus]

"Print the myth"

 

[surreybrowncap]

Do you think that a company like Factory didn't know the price the printers were asking and what the returns would be before they sent it out?

Is this the same Factory who went bankrupt.
Didn't own most of it's artist's music.
The shambolic running of The Hacienda...
I loved the Factory output by the way...

 

[domestos]

I like hearing it at random but don't think I'd actively hunt out Blue Monday to play whereas I would happily stick on Temptation

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Is this the same Factory who went bankrupt.
Didn't own most of it's artist's music.
The shambolic running of The Hacienda...
I loved the Factory output by the way...

Yes.
The Hacienda was indeed a business failure. That doesn't mean they didn't cost it.
Not owning your artists music on a small independent label and not handcuffing your artists to is not that unusual.

Just because Hooky repeats the story in an anecdote (his version of each sale costing the band more and more is clearly bollocks) and it was in a film doesn't mean it is 100% true. As mentioned above by Steel Icarus, the Tony Wilson quite, "Print the myth"

 

[rubbershoes]

I was never a fan of the '88 remixes much. Although I do have a soft spot for Hardfloor's update of it with the ace build-up bit.

5.15 onwards:

This could be any Hardfloor remix. They're all the same

 

[Part 2]

I remember listening to it when my eldest lad was developing his taste in music while he was a teenager, about 15 years ago. I thought at the time it was the one song I'd heard regularly since I first heard it when my older brother bought it around the same age. Other than a random play on the radio I wouldn't listen to it now, or New Order in general tbh. I hate nostalgia at the best of times and Manchester's music scene was threatened with being restricted by people milking it for all it was worth, although thankfully that seems less of a thing now (Ian Curtis Bar aside). At one time in the town hall meeting room walls there were quotes from Tony Wilson and in the office where homeless people used to present it had a quote by Ian Brown on the wall that said 'Manchester's got everything except a beach'.

Another tune with an anniversary...30 years old. The gap between these two seems much bigger than 10 years.

 

[pesh]

Is this the same Factory who went bankrupt.
Didn't own most of it's artist's music.
The shambolic running of The Hacienda...
I loved the Factory output by the way...

Peter Saville also confirmed it and said it was down to the die-cut cover, and they never really knew how many die-cut versions were supplied and how many of the cheaper fully printed versions were supplied.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Peter Saville also confirmed it and said it was down to the die-cut cover, and they never really knew how many die-cut versions were supplied and how many of the cheaper fully printed versions were supplied.

Peter Saville confirmed the die cutting the cover was super expensive. It was. That doesn't change anything or prove the myth.

For instance Peter Hook said every copy sold cost new order more money. This wasn't true, he was just repeating what Tony said to him when he exclaimed that it would have lost them 50 grand. That 10p per record would have been swallowed up somewhere.

 

[Sir Belchalot]

45 years old: