The Mancunians spliced Donna Summer with Ennio Morricone to make a futurist dance smash – and ended up influencing Rihanna, Pet Shop Boys and Detroit techno
It’s probably overstating the case to say that the release of Blue Monday transformed New Order’s career, but it certainly changed it. It put them in the Top 10 and on Top of the Pops for the first time. It spent 38 weeks in the Top 75, became the biggest-selling 12-inch single of all time and altered public perceptions of New Order: previously The Band That Used to Be Joy Division, the province of John Peel listeners, they now reached an audience that had never heard of Ian Curtis.
It also proved hugely influential, presaging the melding of alt-rock and dance that was to come later in the 80s, affecting the post-disco club music that had inspired it in the first place, providing a set text for techno producers and exerting a lasting grip on pop’s imagination. On its 40th birthday, here are the songs that fed into its creation – and the songs that wouldn’t have existed had Blue Monday not existed first.
