[4] The track was written and produced by Gillian Gilbert, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris and Bernard Sumner.

"Blue Monday" is a eurodisco, synth-pop and alternative dance song that drew inspirations from many works of other artists.

The cover features no words, but instead has code, invented by Saville, in the form of coloured blocks that contains the artist, song and label information.

It spent 186 weeks on the UK Independent Singles Chart, effectively selling for four years until the release of the Substance 1987 compilation on which it featured.

[16] New Order worked before the advent of MIDI, and so enlisted the engineer Martin Usher to design a circuit to synchronise the synthesisers and drum machine.

[19] Sumner said parts were taken from "Dirty Talk" by Klein + MBO and "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" by Sylvester.

[20] "Blue Monday" has been labelled a "synth-pop classic"[21][22] and described as cementing the group's movement from post-punk to alternative dance.

[5] It has been noted as an example of the hi-NRG style of club music,[23] and the 2004 edition of The Rolling Stone Album Guide called it "the ultimate in flawlessly programmed, LSD-driven, push-button dance-pop".

[citation needed] "Blue Monday" was described by the BBC Radio 2 "Sold on Song" feature as "a crucial link between Seventies disco and the dance/house boom that took off at the end of the Eighties.

"[25] Synth-pop had been a major force in British popular music for several years, but "Blue Monday", with encouragement by the band's manager Rob Gretton, was a dance record that also exhibited influences from the New York club scene.

Instead the legend "FAC 73 BLUE MONDAY AND THE BEACH NEW ORDER" is represented in code by a series of coloured blocks.

[26] "Blue Monday" and Power, Corruption & Lies are two of four Factory releases from this time period to employ the colour code, the others being "Confusion" by New Order and From the Hip by Section 25.

Matthew Robertson's Factory Records: The Complete Graphic Album[27] notes that "[d]ue to the use of die-cutting and specified colours, the production cost of this sleeve was so high that the single sold at a loss."

"[29] Robertson also noted that "later reissues had subtle changes to limit the cost" (the diecut areas being replaced with printed silver ink).

The video features sketches by photographer William Wegman and his Weimaraner dog named Fay Ray doing balancing acts intercut with hand-drawn animation by Robert Breer.

The band members are shown standing around doing various tasks, such as walking a wooden plank over a floor that is painted blue, holding wire-mesh constructed art and milk crates over their faces, being hit by tennis balls, and standing still while they flip through various flip books (tying into the hand-drawn animation sequences).

Mark Beaumont wrote that with this song, "Britain's formative alternative dance culture found its way" in the mainstream and "stayed there until the acid house explosion obliterated clubland".

[39] Following its release, "Blue Monday" influenced hi-NRG-producer Bobby Orlando, the Detroit techno scene and the synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys.

Despite selling well it was not eligible for an official gold disc because Factory Records was not a member of the British Phonographic Industry association.

[45] In the mid-80s, New Order accepted US$200,000 to use "Blue Monday" in a commercial for the soft drink Sunkist, with new lyrics: "How does it feel / When a new day has begun?

Compilation appearances include All tracks written by Gillian Gilbert, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris and Bernard Sumner.

[106] In an interview with Billboard guitarist Amir Derakh said that upon working on the song they "wanted to do the original 'Blue Monday' justice" and had expected more criticism.

With the label's support this release was an enhanced CD that featured the music video for "Blue Monday" on 9 February 1999,[107] which was in QuickTime format.

[114] "Blue Monday" is also said to have helped pave the way for the cyberpunk trend, as best exemplified in the popularity of the 1999 science fiction film The Matrix, which appeared soon afterwards.

[115] In an interview of Joel Gallen in Los Angeles magazine, the music supervisors were discussing the use of Orgy's "Blue Monday" for a football scene in the film Not Another Teen Movie (2001), among others.

[124] Many critics attribute the success of the album Candyass to "Blue Monday", and some anticipated that Orgy would become a one-hit wonder, believing that it would be difficult for the band to follow up with another hit song.

[citation needed] The single received generally positive reviews by electronic music critics,[134] but Mallory O'Donnell of Stylus Magazine commented that Flunk "only showed the paucity of melody" of the original New Order song.