well, I'm not much of a techno fan. My selection is a 12" single from the 80's.
New Order's Blue Monday. We danced our asses of to this way back in the day.
Here's Wiki:
"
Blue Monday" is a dance pop song recorded in 1982 and originally released as a single in 1983 by British band
New Order, and later remixed for further releases in 1988 and 1995.
At nearly 7 and a half minutes in length, "Blue Monday" is one of the longest tracks ever to chart in the UK. It is recognised as the biggest selling
12" single of all time, but as
Factory Records were not members of the
British Phonographic Industry association, it was not eligible for an official
gold disc. However, the Official UK Chart Company (
UK Singles Chart) has estimated its total UK sales at over one million. In the all-time UK best-selling singles chart, published in 2002, "Blue Monday" came 76th.
The song begins with a distinctive
semiquaver kick drum intro.
Gillian Gilbert eventually fades in a sequencer melody. According to band interviews in
NewOrderStory, she did so at the wrong time, so the melody is out of sync with the beat; however, the band considered it to be a happy accident that contributed to the track's charm. The verse section features the song's signature throbbing synth bass line, played by a Moog Source, overlaid with
Peter Hook's bass guitar leads. The synth bass line was sequenced on a Powertran Sequencer home built by Bernard .
[1] Bernard Sumner delivers the lyrics in a deadpan manner. "Blue Monday" is an atypical hit song in that it does not feature a standard verse-
chorus structure. After a lengthy introduction, the first and second verses are contiguous and are separated from the third verse only by a brief series of sound effects. A short breakdown section follows the third verse, which leads to an extended outro.
"Blue Monday" is often seen as one of the most important crossover tracks of the 1980s pop music scene. Synthpop had been a major force in British popular music for several years, but "Blue Monday" was arguably the first British dance record to exhibit an obvious influence from the New York club scene, particularly the work of producers like
Arthur Baker (who collaborated on New Order's follow-up single "Confusion").
According to
Bernard Sumner, "Blue Monday" was influenced by four songs: the arrangement came from "Dirty Talk", by
Klein + M.B.O.; the signature bassline with octaves came from
Sylvester's
disco classic, "
You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)"; the house beat came from "Our Love", by
Donna Summer; and the long keyboard pad on the intro was sampled from the
Kraftwerk song "Uranium", from the
Radio-Activity album.
[2] In an interview for
Channel 4's countdown of the biggest selling UK singles, the band claimed to have written the song in response to crowd disappointment at the fact that they never played encores. This song, they say, allowed them to return to the stage, press play on a synthesiser and leave the stage again. An example of this happening appears on New Order's concert video
Pumped Full of Drugs.
As with many of New Order's songs, the title has no relationship with the lyrics, which in turn have been the subject of much debate. Although
Bernard Sumner never publicly discusses his lyrics, many people have surmised that "Blue Monday" concerns the suicide of
Joy Division vocalist
Ian Curtis and the effect it had on his former bandmates. However, comparisons with the lyrics and the aftereffects of cocaine have also been made, which would fit in with the potentially drug related themes of many other New Order tracks. (Another legend has it that the band was on
LSD while recording it, and after they finished the producers took them to a café to finish out their tripping while they went back and cleaned it up.)[
citation needed] The song's references to a ship in the harbour, a beach (the name of the original releases B-Side) as well as other lyrics that could concern war together with the fact that more overt military imagery is used in a number of other New Order songs (such as the contemporaneous "We All Stand"), has also raised suggestions that the song is a reference to the
Falklands War of 1982. Indeed, the video to the original 1983 release of the song used many clips of military vehicles, albeit in a warped manner, such as that of a
Harrier Jump Jet, a plane which featured heavily in the conflict.
