Released 40 years ago this week, New Order’s “Blue Monday” (hear the original EP version here) became, according to the BBC, “the pivotal link between disco Seventies and the dance/house boom that began in the late Eighties.” If you frequented dance clubs in the 1980s, you know the song.
The original “Blue Monday” never really won me over. I am much more Rolling Stones than New Order. But I was taken with the above adaptation. Created by the “Obsolete Orchestra”, this version attempts to imagine what the song might have been like in 1933, using only the instruments available at the time— for example, the BBC wrote, theremin, band saw, harmonium, and set-up piano. It’s quite a change from the Powertron Sequencer, Moog Source synthesizer, and Oberheim DMX drum machine used to record songs in the 80s. Enjoy this little thought experiment in action.
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Note: A previous version of this post appeared on our site in 2016.
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