Matt Berninger, a cover of “Blue Monday”

Legend has it that the third Monday in January is the saddest day of the year, “Blue Monday” – no scientific proof, but for some time a lot was written about it. We’re not there yet, if you want to believe that story: but in the meantime there’s a “Blue Monday”, and it’s definitely nicer. It is the cover of the New Order classic that Matt Berninger, lead singer of the National, recorded and published. Berninger – who had already written a song entitled “New Order T-Shirt” for his band a few years ago – had started to include the song in the setlist of his solo concerts, then in September he published it as an exclusive for Amazon. Now the song, with a new cover, is available on all platforms as a single.

“Blue Monday” is the greatest success of New Order, a band born from the ashes of Joy Division and which almost immediately embraced a more electronic dimension, of which this song is one of the peaks. The song was released in March 1983: a 7 and a half minute song that was released in 12-inch format for discos, precisely because of the long instrumental and rhythmic introduction, which was based on a sampling of Donna Summer’s “Our Love”. As Bernard Sumner said, the song also contained a sample of Kraftwerk’s “Radioactivity” but was influenced above all by Sylvester’s “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”, a disco classic from 5 years earlier. The 12″ had a shaped cover, designed by graphic designer Peter Saville, which reproduced the shape of a floppy disc. It will go down in history by becoming the best-selling 12″ of all time in Great Britain with over a million certified copies: Berninger’s cover demonstrates how this song has influenced generations of musicians.