here is an excerpt from the mad world new wave book,
the text is slightly out of order, so i tried to follow what it said:
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44
You know how, when you graduated high school and
went on to college, you got the chance to totally make
yourself over? How you got new clothes, a new person-
ality, and a new hairstyle, and you invented a whole new
backstory to win yourself a cool new group of friends
to replace all those losers you left behind? That’s
what happened to the most prominent guttersnipes
of British punk when they outgrew spitting and safety pins. PIL were
nothing like the Sex Pistols. Big Audio Dynamite were nothing like
the Clash. The Style Council were nothing like the Jam. New Order,
though, were exactly like Joy Division... until “Blue Monday.’The first
few records they made following the 1980
suicide of Ian Curtis sounded like the ghost
of their singer was still haunting them.
But “Blue Monday” changed everything.
It turned New Order into a dance-floor
mainstay, gave them a new, worldwide
audience and the bestselling 12-inch single
of all time, paid for the Hagienda (laying
the foundation for their native Manchester
to become Madchester), and kept them
around for the next 30 - something years.
It also lit the spark for a simmering feud
between creative collaborators Bernard
Sumner and Peter Hook that would boil
over more than three decades later.
“BLUE MONDAY”
NEW ORDER
LM: When I saw New Order at Jones Beach
on Long Island in the late eighties, it was
like that moment in The Wizard of Oz when
Dorothy sees the real Oz behind the curtain.
Unlike the other groups I liked, these guys
wore regular-Joe clothes. Sumner was the
most nondescript frontman I'd ever seen. No
wonder they don't put their photos on the
record sleeves, I thought. Still,
there was no denying Hooky’s
rock-god bass playing. Also,
New Order had risen from the
ashes of Joy Division, inarguably one of the
coolest bands ever. And think about this:
The list of musicians who graduated from
one successful group to another includes
Paul McCartney, Ron Wood, Eric Clapton, and
Dave Grohl, yet none of them have been in
two consecutive game changers like Sumner,
Hook, and drummer Steven Morris.
JB: This isn’t in my top-five New Order
songs. I’d put it behind “True Faith," “Bizzare Love Triangle,” “Subculture," and
Age of Consent.” I’d probably put it behind “Regret"
too. But that doesn’t mean that I dont
know what a monster it was or that I underestimate its importance. “Blue Monday
utilized all the traditional components of a
electronic-dance record, except it omitted
any sense of liberation, any chance of escape.
Sounding weary and desolate has always
been second nature to Bernard Sumner
but hearing him moan, “How does it feel
when your heart grows cold?” accompanied
by the remorseless grind of machines was
especially chilling.“Blue Monday” was the
black cloud hanging over the dance floor
was the soundtrack to a bleak, dehumanizing
future. And it sounded fantastic.
BERNARD SUMNER: After Ian Curtis died, we were all very upset and depressed and obviously, in shock. When we started
releasing stuff like Movement, we got a complete''
negative response from the press, and that sadness turned into anger. It was like,
on, give us a break. Can't you just help us out in our hour of need instead of sticking the knife
in?” Because the British press can be pretty sadistic. “Blue Monday" was kind of a response
to that. It was like, “Fuck you! Here's what we can do."
“Blue Monday” came out, and the press really stuck the knife in again! They said it was a pile of shit, and it was
rubbish and that no one would buy it. And here we are, all these
years later....
"BLUE MONDAY”
“Blue Monday” spread because it's a
club record, and it caught DJs' attention.
It was at the vanguard of electronic dance
music. We were on Factory Records, who
had a promotional budget
of nothing. Zero. They didn’t
believe in promotion, we didn't
do many interviews about it,
and somehow we ended up with this world-
wide hit.
In England, it kept going in the charts
year after year as it got through to a different
crowd. People would come back from their
summer holidays, and it had been played in
places like Ibiza, and suddenly it’d go back
up in the charts again.
PETER HOOK; We find that most people are
either Joy Division fans or New Order
fans. It’s very rare to find one who likes
both, because they’re quite different. Joy
Division and New Order existed during very
different periods. When New Order came
about, times were more fun — everything
lightened up.
New Order’s way of coping with the
grief of Ian's death was to ignore Joy
Division. And you must admit, it worked.
New Order became successful all around
49
When we released Blue Monday, a
lot of people who knew us were like, "That
doesn't sound like New Order." But that was the point.
It's not really our best song, but it was designed like a
machine to make people dance. I felt a bit uncomfortable doing
music that was just like Joy Division. And as
a singer, I felt uncomfortable stepping into
Ian's shoes, because I didn't want to sound
like an Ian Curtis impersonator. I think the
first New Order album, Movement, was kind
of pseudo-Joy Division but with a different
singer. It didn't feel true to me. I wanted to
do something that had a different flavor. It
was synergy, really, that electronic music — it
wasn't born but it blossomed then.
After the death of Ian, we recorded
two New Order tracks, “Ceremony" and
In a Lonely Place,' in New Jersey some-
where, then every night we’d drive back into
Manhattan and go out to nightclubs. So we
were influenced by what we were hearing in York nightclubs and by what we heard in
London. I also had a friend in Germany who
sending me 12-inch singles from there.
And I was technically minded. You couldn't buy computers then, so I built a music sequencer. You could buy a music
sequencer, but it'd cost you the same as buying a house. So with the help of a scien-tist who worked with us, I built
this synthe-sizer and music sequencer on the cheap, and we put the two together. Just at that
time, the DMX drum machine came out,
so we got the scientist to design us a little
box that could make them all speak to each
other, and we made “Blue Monday" with it.
NEW ORDER
“New Order’s way of
coping with the grief of
Ian’s death was to ignore
Joy Division. And you
must admit, it worked.”
the world, if not more successful than Joy
Division. The trouble was, because we were
so young, we were happy to avoid the grief.
Looking back now, as a 56-year-old man, I
realize, with all of the people I’ve lost, that
grieving is a very important process.
When we did play the Joy Division
stuff, Bernard didn’t like it. He felt it was
miserable. It’s a bit of a crass way of put-
ting it, but I understand what he meant.
New Order is much poppier, much lighter,
much more optimistic. Joy Division’s stuff
is very dark — you could say gloomy. Plus,
he wrote the New Order stuff, so I suppose
that means a lot more to Bernard than the
Joy Division stuff did.
“Blue Monday” was an experiment
in seeing how much we could get the
sequencers to do, and we did get them to
do a hell of a lot. The fact that “Blue Monday”
still sounds as good now as it did 30 years
ago is incredible. I’m going to blow me
own trumpet: We certainly have a knack
for making fantastic music. Me and Mike
Johnson, who was the engineer, worked
really, really hard, along with Bernard and
Steven, to make “Blue Monday” sonically
exciting. Bernard and Steven, in particular,
were very interested in experimenting with
the new technology. I must admit, I wasn’t
very interested in it. I preferred to rock out. It
was that combination of me wanting to be in
a rock band and them wanting to be a disco
band that gave us our unique sound. We
were listening to Sparks, Giorgio Moroder,
Suicide, Kraftwerk. And also, in New York we
were taken to many clubs: Tier 3, Hurrah.
And you were like, “Wow, this is so different
to England,” that it had an influence on you.
“Blue Monday" was meant to be an
instrumental closer to the show. In the stu-
dio we just thought we’d have a go at putting
lyrics over it. The lyrics and the vocal were
the absolute last things that went on. They
were done at four o’clock in the morning,
right at the end, when the song was written and nearly produced.
The lyrics were very much an afterthought, and I think the
reluctance to put them on can be heard. But
strangely enough, it works. The deadpan, off-beat delivery
actually works great as a contrast with the music:
How. Does it. Feel. It’s such a juxtaposition, isn’t it?
With Ian gone, we all tried to be New
Order’s singer. Our producer, Martin
50
"BLUE MONDAY"
Hannett, hated us all — Bernard just had
the last go. But realistically, with Bernard
adding the guitar after he sang, it managed
to give you a new style. So he would sing,
Steve and I would play, then, when he’d stop
singing, he wouId play guitar. And that gave
it the lift, the up and down, the light and dark,
that became the New Order sound.
“Blue Monday” was recorded in
conjunction with about 10 other songs:
“Temptation,” "Everything’s Gone Green,”
“Thieves like Us.”... It was competing with
many other songs in our hearts, if you like.
It was nearly seven and a half minutes long,
and we were asked to cut it down, but we
just didn't do it. However, we did agree to do
a shortened version for Top of the Pops. Top
of the Pops was what you watched as a child,
and it was one of the only music programs
that was on mainstreamTV. Everything was
about Top of the Pops — it was a religious
ceremony. Even though you didn't like the
acts on Top of the Pops most of the time, you
still watched it. It was the only TV program
that you could guarantee would annoy
your parents, and it would educate you as
to what was going on musically. So to get
our act on it was an honor, and [editing the
song] was something we accommodated
for that reason. If you played on Top of the
Pops, supposedly your single went up 15
places, guaranteed. Because we played
live — we didn't mime — and sounded ter-
rible and looked terrible, ours was the only
record that went down. We were delighted
about that, though. It was punk; it was
chaotic; it was wild; it cocked a snoot, as
we say in England. We were happy — even
when the record went down the charts, we
were happy.
I got the title "Blue Monday” from a
book. Everybody thinks it’s from the Fats
Domino song, but it wasn’t. It came from a
fiction book. I would read voraciously in the
studio. There was a sheet on the wall, and
everybody would write ideas on it. Power,
Corruption and Lies came from the back
of 1984. “True Faith” came from a James A.
Michener book on Texan Catholicism. The
titles had very little to do with the songs.
MIXTAPE: 5 More Dark, Depressing, Doom-Filled Dance-Floor Classics
1. “Dr. Mabuse,” Propaganda
2. “I Travel,” Simple Minds
3. “Der Mussolini,” D.A.F.
4 “Sensoria,” Cabaret Voltaire
5. “Living in Oblivion,” Anything Box
NEW ORDER
It was tradition, something we carried on,
and a mark of excellence that we got from
Joy Division. “Atmosphere,” “The Eternal” —
these words were never mentioned in the
songs either.
It was me and Bernard who wrote the
melodies. There's long been a personal-
ity conflict there. We certainly were not
friendly, shall we say. I think Bernard ever
only phoned me once. The only time was
to ask for a lift to rehearsals because his
car battery was dead. And I must admit, I’ve
never phoned him.
It’s also ego. It was always me and him
fighting for the limelight, not only on stage
but musically. To me, New Order wasn’t
New Order unless it had the bass guitar on
it, and he would go to great lengths to try
and mix me out. He started trying to get
me out of the music a long, long time ago.
If you listen, you can hear the bass getting
quieter and quieter in the songs as the
struggle evolved between Bernard and me.
If you look at songs like “Thieves like Us" and
“Blue Monday,” the bass is as loud as the
vocal. Further on, the bass is not as loud
as the vocal; it's disappearing. The notable
one was “Bizarre Love Triangle.” That was
the first stand-up fight we had about how
much bass was in the song. Bernard felt that
the bass dated it. And actually, it's the other
way around now, isn’t it? You hear the bass.
and it gives it a timeless quality.
We went to do “Here to Stay" with the
Chemical Brothers, who were great fans of
the group. The way I normally work is this: I
put bass through the whole track, and then
we leave it to the producer to pick the parts.
Well, when we went to listen to what they'd
done, Bernard and I sat there and listened
with the Chemical Brothers—and they
had put every bass part in throughout the!
whole song. Because they loved it. Bernard
went fucking mad! He told me the bass was
interfering with the lead vocal. It was at that
point that I thought, Oh my God, this band is
finished. It’s only time before it goes. He got
his own way, like he always did.
52
NEW ORDER
New Order’s original lineup—which also included Morris’s wife, keyboardist Gillian
Gilbert—continued until 2007, when a frustrated Hook announced he was quitting,
Sumner and Morris soldiered on without Hook and Gilbert, who’d departed to be a
full-time mother. But then Sumner and Morris decided to form a new group, Bad
Lieutenant. Despite Morris’s declaration that “there’s no future for New Order,” 2011 saw a
re-formation with Gilbert but not Hook. The bassist responded with a lawsuit accusing the
others of touring and planning to record as New Order without compensating him. Then, in
2013, New Order released the long-delayed album The Last Sirens, the final tracks recorded I
while Hook was still a member. Meanwhile, Hook tours the world with his band the Light,
playing Joy Division and New Order albums in their entirety. Talk about confusion!
SUMNER: We knew “Blue Monday” was a good
song, but we didn’t realize just how potent
it was. You're too close to the trees. Go on
YouTube and type in “the Jolly Boys, Blue
Monday.” It’s two or three 80-year-old guys
doing this weird, Jamaican-music version.
It's fantastic.
We just played Mexico, and we had
50,000 people. Sometimes you get really
young fans. I’ve spoken to some of them
and said, "How have you heard about New
Order?" This girl at the airport the other day
must have been, like, 16. And they go, “Oh, my
sister played it to me” or “My father played it
to me." It's passed down through the family
like a gold watch.
We’d been trying to get The Lost Sirens
out for a longtime but that’s when we had the
falling-out with Peter Hook, and he refused
to take part in it. He refused to come to the
writing sessions and was busy DJing. So we
never finished those songs.
HOOK: One of the main problems toward the
end of my time with New Order — not New
Odor, as they are now — was that Bernard
was managing the band, and if anyone upset
him, they were in trouble. He became like a
dictator. There’s an interview with Bernard
where he said that one of the problems with
New Order was he wasn’t aIlowed to change
the chemistry of it, and that was absolutely
correct. The chemistry of it was that I played
bass on every track. You’re not messing with
that. You want to mess with that, go form
another band. And that was exactly what he
54
“BLUE MONDAY"
did They now have a bass player that they
can tell what to do, whereas before they had a
bass player they could not tell what to do and
who did what he wanted. That’s what made
the band fiery and interesting.
If we had sorted it out before New Order
had re-formed, I could have wished them the
best, could’ve wished them well. But because
of the way they did it, I could never wish
them well. What makes me laugh is when
journalists take great delight in asking, "Do
you think you’ll ever get back with them?”
Because of the group that I loved and put
32 years into, I’m fighting them tooth and
nail. This is a divorce. You know when you're
going through the arguments, the splitting
of the CDs, who’s getting half the dog, and
things like that? For someone to ask me if
I’m going to get back with them, it does seem
strangely ridiculous at this point in time. But
in the future you would hope that you and
your ex would get on well, if just for the kids.
I hope that we can get on well because our
fans, who are our kids, would love it if we did.
At the moment, we aren't.
I watched the opening ceremony of
the 2012 London Olympics and heard “Blue
Monday." It was fantastic, it really was. To
be put into that context, part of a country's
Musical history, that was a fantastic com-
pliment. What makes these arguments that
New Order have between us quite stupid is
the largeness of the thing we’ve created.
To my mind, you're ruining it with the petty
squabbles that you’re having now, which are
very, very sad.
If you read [Charlatans’ singer] Tim
Burgess's book, Telling Stories, he spends
the whole time, the rest of his career, looking
for the dead keyboard player. In a way, both
Bernard and I may be looking for someone
to replace Ian Curtis. If somebody of that
stature came in, then maybe we would
have stopped fighting. It’s just that it never
happened, did it?
“I watched the opening
ceremony of the 2012
London Olympics and
heard ‘Blue Monday.’...
To be put into that context,
part of a country’s musical
history, that was a
fantastic compliment.”
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later
-1
Edited by user 15 December 2017 08:59:23(UTC)
| Reason: Not specified
