New Order: Blue Monday 1988 (12", 2023 remaster) [FACTORY]

Why you'll love it

This 12" single carries the 2023 remaster and plays at 45 RPM. The 1988 remix reached No. 3 in the UK, No. 1 in New Zealand and topped the US dance chart.

This edition

• 12" single
• Remastered
• Cut at 45 RPM
• Pressed in Germany

About the album

The original "Blue Monday" is the best-selling 12-inch single in history, so redoing it five years later took a certain nerve. New Order did it anyway, sharpening the drum machine and synth lines for the late-80s club floor, and the new version went straight back up the charts around the world, reaching No. 4 in Australia along the way. The song has since been covered by Orgy, 808 State and Health.

Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert wrote the song together, and the 1988 mix keeps everything that made it a phenomenon: the stuttering kick drum, Hook's melodic bass and Sumner's deadpan vocal. On the flip, "Beach Buggy" is a mostly instrumental reworking, in the spirit of the instrumental B-side that backed the 1983 original. It's a dance record built entirely on machines that still feels completely human.

Factory first put out the song in 1983 in Peter Saville's floppy-disk sleeve, and it has never really left the dance floor since. A record this many people have danced to should probably count as cardio.

Also at Kops: more New Order on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Factory (cat# Fac73R), a reissue of the 1988 single.