Illustration by Carlos Lerma for Song Exploder
In many ways, New Order’s singular 1983 single “Blue Monday” is the perfect track to be disassembled by the Song Exploder podcast, with the group’s members acknowledging in the episode released this week that the song is a conglomeration of heaped-on musical parts, put together in an attempt to create an automated encore to play after the quartet left the stage.
The new episode of Song Exploder — which you can hear below — features interviews with Bernard Sumner, Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris from the band’s Transmissions podcast, plus a new interview with former member Peter Hook by host Hrishikesh Hirway. They break down the track into its many parts, and explain how they ended up assembling a song that is allegedly the best-selling 12-inch single of all time.
Here’s the full episode — and the song:
PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS
- Kate Bush to be inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — but Joy Division/New Order don’t make cut
- New Order announces tour of U.K., Europe with dates in London, Paris, Amsterdam
- Watch: Peter Hook joins Smashing Pumpkins to play Joy Division’s “No Love Lost”
- The National releases song called “New Order T-Shirt” and an actual New Order T-shirt
- New Order to play South By Southwest and four other U.S. shows this March
