How does it feel to have the best-selling 12-inch single of all time? Ask New Order, and they'll tell you just how they feel (probably sore, since they ended up losing money).
The pioneering post-punk/new wave group formed out of tragedy to reach incredible heights of critical and commercial success. After Joy Division singer Ian Curtis' death by suicide in 1980, the surviving members of the band—bassist Peter Hook, guitarist/vocalist Bernard Sumner, drummer Stephen Morris—formed New Order alongside Gillian Gilbert.
In the first few years of its existence, New Order released a handful of singles that topped the UK Indie Chart—"Ceremony," "Procession," and "Temptation." Then, in 1983, they put out what would become their defining track: "Blue Monday."
New Order's 'Blue Monday' Is The Best-Selling 12-Inch Single Of All Time
Released on March 7, 1983, "Blue Order" was a revelation—and a hit! It reached No. 9 on the UK Singles Chart, no small feat for a song released on the independent label, Factory Records.
The 1983 12-inch (with the full 7:32-long song) initially sold over 700,000 copies, per Official Charts; as of 2023, sales are in excess of two million across all formats, per Music Week, with 521.9 million Spotify streams on the original version. It was and remains the best-selling 12-inch single of all time.
A shortened, 4:09 version was also released on 7" vinyl.
"We thought it would be good to create a song that was completely electronic," Gilbert told The Guardianin 2013. "' Blue Monday' was meant to be robotic, the idea being that we could walk on stage and do it without playing the instruments ourselves."
The band even tried to use a digitized voice to sing the lines, but Sumner ended up doing the vocals himself. "He says the lyric came about because he was fed up with journalists asking him how he felt," added Gilbert, likely referring to the loss of Ian Curtis. As for the bits about ships in the harbor?
"The lines about the beach and the harbor were the start of his many nautical references – he loves sailing," explained Gilbert.
Bernard Sumner of New Order performs at Sydney Opera House on March 14, 2025Photo by Don Arnold on Getty Images
"I remember just being turned on by the latest technology that was becoming available. It was pre-computers, pre-MIDI, and I'd built this sequencer from an electronics kit," Bernard Sumner told NME when he and Peter Hook spoke to the publication in 2015. Sumner took Morris's drum machine andhad a science friend named Martin Usherdesign a circuit that would connect it to his synthesizer.
"The day that we wrote ['Blue Monday'] was the day that we brought the circuit in, hooked it all up and pressed 'GO' on the drum machine," said Summer. "Then, the synthesizer started chattering away, and somehow it all worked."
"'Blue Monday' has a sonic impact that very, very few records have," added Peter Hook. "It really was a gift, and it was quite ironic – and quite sad, really – that we stole it off a Donna Summer B-side. It is a weird song."
The Donna Summer song in question? 1979's "Our Love," the B-side to "Bad Girls." The Guardianbroke down the multiple ingredients that went into "Blue Monday," from the stuttering rhythm from Donna and producer Giorgio Moroder to Kraftwerk's "Uranium" to Ennio Morricone's "For A Few Dollars More."
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New Order combined these elements to create a "starting point" for dance music.
"We were at the vanguard with that song – stuff like that wasn't being played on the radio or in clubs," said Bernard Summer. "There was electronic music, but not much electronic dance music…suddenly, this track came along that sounded different to everything else, so DJ's started playing it. And it kept coming back into the charts. We actually never got any radio play off Blue Monday; it was a hit in spite of the radio."
Did 'Blue Monday' Actually End Up Losing Money?
There was a rumor that "Blue Monday" ultimately lost money. "It's absolutely true," Peter Hook told NME in 2105. "Factory sold it for £1, and it cost £1.10 to make because of the sleeve."
The 12" single came in a special record sleeve designed by renowned graphic designer Peter Saville, one that looked like an 8-inch/5.25 floppy disc (the larger version of the 3.5-inch design that younger generations only know as the "SAVE" icon).
Tony [Wilson, Factory Records co-founder] ended up having those wonderful brass awards cut for us to celebrate 500,000 sales, when what we were actually celebrating was a loss of £50,000," added Hook. "That could only happen at Factory!"
Related: 48 Years Ago Today, One of Rock’s Most Influential Bands Made Their Live Debut
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