One Song - New Order “Blue Monday”

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

This time on One Song, Diallo and Luxxury dig into the biggest selling 12 inch single of all-time: Blue Monday, by New Order. The guys break down how the song was created, its surprising disco influences, and one of the most nonchalant vocal performances ever recorded. Album: Power, Corruption & Lies. Genres: Synth-pop, Alternative/Indie. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm actor, director, writer, and sometimes DJ, Diallo Riddle. And I'm producer, DJ, and sometimes guy on TikTok who whispers interpolation, luxury. And this is one song. The show where we deconstruct and celebrate some of your favorite songs from the past 60 years in music history and tell you why they deserve one more listen. We promise you'll never hear these songs the same way again. D'allel, how have you been? I've been going back and listening to Chuckie Booker Games, which is the song.

song that Mark Morrison used for Return of the Mac. Okay. And what's funny to me is that... Is it a sample? It's a sample, yeah. And first of all, the Chuck EBooker music video is insane. Like, it's got so many early 90s music video tropes, like, girl standing by window while the curtain blows.

Like, it's just got some really... Wistfully. Yeah. Some great... But, like, I would encourage listeners to go back and discover Chuckie Booker's games, because it is a phenomenal song, and it's one of those rare instances where the song that sampled it,

sampled it only like three years later. Like it wasn't that much, like, it wasn't in the world for like 20 years, like it typically. It was like three years later. I wonder, Chuckie, I mean, did Chuckie Booker get paid? We're going to have to do some research

and find out. What happened to my man, Chuckie Booker? I'm sure he's still out there singing. Hopefully he makes some money every time we play Return of the Mac. I hope so. And did you discover the original from the sample? I'll be honest.

I knew. because in Atlanta, you know, Atlanta didn't play a lot of hip hop on the radio in the 90s during the daytime. So we got slow jams. And Chuggie Booker's games was like a big hit on, you know, R&B radio. So when Return of the Mac came out, yeah, most of us knew it was a sample. But like, Return of the Mac now is like this famous song that you can play almost anywhere in the world. You know, you lie to me. You know, like you can play that anywhere.

Meanwhile, Chucky Bookers, you know, why you want to play a game? games on me, like, you know, not as famous. So I encourage everybody to find Chuckie Booker. I think he has an I instead of a Y at the end of Chuckie. Chuckie Booker games, you'll be like, oh, snap, I didn't know return on the Mac was a sample. But I think we are ready to get this show started. Let's get this show started. Let's do it. I think we should. Today, we are going to talk about a song that holds a very special place in my heart from a band that holds a very special place. The English post-punk band New Order and the greatest selling 12-inch single of all time. their song Blue Monday.

We'll get into the history behind the making of the song as well as the influence Blue Monday had on the post-punk era. Plus, I will share how the band New Order influenced seventh grade me and helped Little Luxury

find his voice. I want to see a picture of that guy. All that and more on one song. Diallo, have I ever told you my New Order story slash my first day of seventh grade story? No, you haven't. I have to know more.

Yeah, so here's the story. This little kid with curly hair called Blake was at a new school. Marine Country Day School. Shout out to all my peeps in Marin County, California. I was the new kid. I didn't know anybody. And what did I do? I have thought about this moment for decades, ever since it happened. And it has been referred to me by many of my since friends.

But knowing nobody, I stood up on a giant rock in the field. I put my hand to my forehead, and I started looking around as though I was on a ship looking for land. And that is literally what happened on that first day of seventh grade. because it was funny to me. That was like the moment that I knew I'd be a lifetime narcissist. It was all happening in this only child's head, this entire fantasy, that this would be funny, that it would make sense,

and that it would give me something to do while these other kids who knew each other, said, hey, welcome back to school. Hey, I like you. I like you. I didn't know anybody. So that was my experience, first day of seventh grade. Oh, boy. The reason why this is relevant is because we are going to talk a lot

in the show about how music has tribal nature to it. And for me, in seventh grade, to know about music, I was starting to explore things that the other kids weren't listening to. And for me at the time, that meant finding this British music, which at the time meant you had to listen to like that one show at midnight on your local radio station or MTV had this show 120 minutes. It was hard to get to. It was hard to access. I remember 120 minutes. Yeah. Such a great show. It made such an influence on me. And I don't remember the exact moment I would have heard it. I think it was probably on KQA, So here I am. I'm in seventh grade, and it's sort of that age where maybe the pop radio starts to become less of what you listen to. I latched on to when this song came on, I immediately latched on to this sound, which was like nothing I'd heard before. It was fast, it was dancey. But while it was sort of this electronic underpinning, it had this sort of punk rock on top. And it had this singing vocal, which was like not even that good. It sounded like nothing else on the radio. So I just want you to picture in your mind's eyes.

Diallo, 12-year-old luxury hearing this for the first time on the radio and it blowing his mind. We're going to dig a little deeper into the background of the band and their influence a little later, but I got a question for you. Diallo, were you a cool kid in seventh grade? Yeah, I'm afraid I was. You were? I'm afraid I was a bit of a jock. You're afraid you were. People looked to me whenever a ball was being thrown or you wouldn't have been my friend there. No, I was a nerd. Oh, you were. You weren't a jock. I fell for it, hook line, and sinker. You don't see this cool jacket. that I have on.

Like, I was clearly a big nerd who's trying to make up for his later life. You could have been a sports guy who got converted. I was a sports guy who got converted. I had baseball cards. But that's not the same thing as a jock. That's not the same thing as a jock. That doesn't make you a jock.

That does not make me a jock. I really walked right into that, didn't I? They're not the same thing. When you are the card collector, you think you're as cool as the jock, though. It's not quite the same. That is the nerdiest thing I think I've ever heard. I was a jock because I collected little pieces of paper

with pictures of athletes on them. Okay. We've got to be kind to our 13-year-old selves. It was my protective armor back then, thinking that I was part of this larger world because I had the baseball cards and knew the stats. I came to the realization real quick. You know, one day while playing basketball in elementary school, even,

I was just like, I'm not good at this. So I'm going to go another direction. Smart. I'm going to stick out this unclaimed territory over here. Well, that's what I did with music. That's literally, that's where this band and this song comes into play. Yeah, I mean, I would argue that they sound like, I mean, that, you know, he sounds like kind of a nerd, and I think it was like,

nerds unite. Like, you know, we as nerds heard that voice and we were like, I can hear that. Yeah, this isn't like Simon Laban or Paul Younger or Shaka Khan. No, this guy's sounded cool. This guy's not a good singer. He's just a guy singing. There's a distinction. And the guy singing, that's what punk rock is.

I heard it is good singing, but also like very like lecturely, like professorial. Okay. Maybe. So it's sort of talky. Talky, talking. Shrek shanga. All right, I'm so excited to talk about this. Let's start with the drums, because that's where the song starts with,

and it is one of the most iconic drum intros of all time. Yeah, it really is. So right out the gate, right off the bat, you have something which is a single instrument, just the kick drum, not even the entire drum set, but it's giving you this, like, signature. This song is knowable in the first second and a half. It really is, and, you know, those are some iconic drums. When the 80s were having their real, you know, sort of comeback retro moment in the 2000s,

that was a DJ. And I will say as a DJ, you love those kind of songs that start off with just the drums. Yes. Because it really, you know, it helps you find the tempo. And it also,

because there's nothing else there to clash with the music of the song going out, it really sounds like you can make that blend and transition really, really smooth. What's funny is that I knew this song when I was a kid too. And just like you,

I was like kind of like a weirdo. Like all the kids in my school listen to, you know, R&B. There wasn't really a whole lot of hip hop being played on the radio back then. And I just, you know, like, the kids knew that like I like, well, they thought I liked Elvis. I actually liked the Beatles. You know, they're like, oh, you're that kid who like Elvis. I was like, no.

To them, it was the same thing. Yeah, it was the same thing. And it's funny, like, I didn't know terms like punk. I didn't even know really know. To me, like, if you'd ask, you know, me that year when this song came out, I would have thought punk was like that really discordant doesn't make any. like I would and if you told me synth pop I would have thought you might have a lisp or something it was like black music and white music maybe because I was growing up in Atlanta

but it was like this was white music but it was like white music did like I loved you know what I mean like it was just like oh I like and it's funny you thought the vocals didn't sound I thought he had a great voice I like the fact that he sounded like very dispassionate you know he's like how does it feel like nobody sings like that on the the R&B side of the fence really. That's a fair point that he does do that particular moment like that. Just generally speaking, though, like Bernard's lyrics and his singing are just so off the cuff and irrelevant that they turn out to be like iconic and make the song. It's kind of like the Meg White drumming phenomenon. It's like it wouldn't work with anything else. You know what's crazy

is one of the very first CDs or tapes that I ever bought is a group electronic which Bernard is in and getting away with it, which is a song that's Johnny Marr. You know, um, God, I freaking love that song. So that's sort of like singing, that style of singing, long before I knew who joyed a vision or any of these other groups were. I just loved it. I thought it was like really cool. Totally, all of that.

And we're going to get deep into the vocals in just a moment. Before we get into that, though I want to talk a little more about the drums. What's really cool about this song is it's a melting pot of a whole lot of different influences. And one in particular, that New Order, by the way, have extensively talked about this. I have about five books and seen 12 interviews, and there's literally a whole podcast. there's no sample snitching going on here. They have talked about how they literally decided to take the drumbeat from this song for that intro that you just heard.

Can we hear that? Why, yes, we can. That's a cool fucking fact. I have never heard that song in my entire life. Donna Summer, Our Love, right, 1979, Georgia Marrower. And by the way, that sounds like that's like ready for a remix too. Just our love will last forever? Oh, yeah, just that little chunk, right?

We got to put that together. We do have a side project. After the show. We're winking at each other. We know exactly what we're doing next. And what's kind of interesting about that is that the Donna Summer original is a live drummer. And the way they got that, because a live drummer with one foot on the pedal, can't do that, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, unless you're John Bonham from

Ludd Zeppelin, but that's its own thing. So what they did was they have a delay pedal that makes that go da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, those 16th notes. And by what New Order did, these guys were absolute wonderful, nerds. They built their own equipment. They would buy the things right off the shelf that were brand new. They had one of the first DMXs, which is the drum machine that came before the 808 that everyone knows about. And before, that's right, before DMX and DMX crew. And they programmed that beat. That's how they got it to do the thing that a drummer, a live drummer couldn't possibly do.

And what's interesting about that is this is this moment where this band, this punk band, this post-punk band, they decide to completely transform themselves and do the most punk thing imaginable, which is to borrow from non-punk music, borrow from dance music, use drum machines. These things are extremely uncool if you're like a diehard dyed in the wool punk rocker at this time. I think that's actually one of the lasting,

you know, ingratiating things about punk is that, you know, they were always willing to throw out the rulebook. You know what I mean? And I feel like whether it's blondie deciding, you know, they were a punk band, but then one of their first big hits is Heart of Glass, which was originally called the disco song. Yeah. So, like, I feel like it's that ability to throw out the rulebook.

I mean, like, you know, it's the same way that, like, DJs were scratching records, and that was sort of like, oh, we're going to make an instrument out of the turntable. Like, it seems like the late 70s, early 80s was just a really exciting time to try new technology, try new technique, and, you know, try some things on the techniques. 1200s. Shout out to DJs out there. You saw that coming. Well, let's pause there for a second. Back up a little bit and get into

the band because New Order, as many people know, but not everybody. So if you're joining New Order Party a little later, used to be Joy Division. And Joy Division, the band, Seminole Post Punk Band out of Manchester, late 70s. Two albums and then the lead singer committed suicide. Well, it was like right before their U.S. tour,

they're leaving the next day on the U.S. tour. And the Incurd is. and Ian Curtis puts on an Iggy Pop record and commits and and what's watching like Looney Tunes cartoons apparently, right? At least according to the film 24 hour party people which if you haven't seen that movie like

you know after you finish this show go go watch that movie it's a great movie with Steve Coogan I love that guy great great great movie a lot of fun even if you don't know that music but I'm sorry please continue no worries no I want to know more about these nerds

what happened in the wake of their singer dying is they're like, what the hell do we do? And the three of them that were left over gradually put the pieces back together, started writing new songs. There's some really cute early footage where they don't even know who's singing, so all three of them try singing. There's some live footage when they go to New York, which is going to be important in a moment. They go tour in New York. They're called, they may or may not be called in order for the first few shows, but they don't even know who the singer is. They're figuring it out. And can I ask a question? So Joy Division, obviously, great band, a controversial name,

it was the name of a very dark department in the Nazis, which it takes a lot to be the dark department working within that. Joy Division, the name comes from the prostitute area of a concentration. Horrible, horrible, would not fly today. New Order, by the way, not much better. Well, I was going to say, and even New Order has, like, you know, the connotation of, like, New World Order. Right, right.

Yeah. Or it was, I thought it was New World Order. I think that came a little later. Both of the names have some iffy origins and what's kind of an interesting, deeper topic maybe to get into another show. But it's all relevant because you were just talking about the kind of punk instinct

to lean into like being contrarian and to like let's do what hasn't been done before. There's a little bit of that, which in retrospect, you look back on these pictures of Sid Vishes with Nazi armbands and stuff. There's something a little bit like proto-trolly about it that in 2023, I don't think we'd give any we wouldn't give any credit to.

Was New Order also related to fascism or Nazism? I just don't know. Yes. They do go on record saying we had some iffy names we wouldn't do it again, basically. They're aware that it wasn't really. That was 20-year-old boys. In Manchester, in Manchester being an industrial town

that was, you know, the industry was dying at that time. And, you know, just like in other places, people want to, you know, blame the others. But these are also 19, 20-year-old boys looking for attention. Like being provocative for provocativeness is sake. Let me just say, I don't think any New Order fans think that they were neo-Nazis.

I just think that, you know, we have to talk about like, you know, oh, Joy to Vision, New Order, what was going on, fellas? I think I like talking about it, and I like bringing up this kind of questionable thing 40 years ago that today we would have less patience for. For sure. And I think that's important to talk about it. But, okay, so they had some setbacks, obviously. The death of their singer being a pretty big.

Yeah, that's a pretty big one. But they regrouped, and not only did they reform, they added the drummer Stephen Morris's girlfriend, Gillian, on keyboards. They also... They don't know that. Their keyboardist was a girl? Jillian is Stephen Morris's wife now.

They're still together all these years later. Oh, that's beautiful. Yeah, and they've got tanks in their backyard. They're crazy. Tanks? Yeah, I don't know why. For some reason, the drummer from New Order collects tanks. It's just something he likes.

I'm still worried about them. I see a lot of... That's true. A lot of militaristic stuff going on. These guys are growing up in postwar like England. There's bombed out areas. I mean, this is like different from like in America. We didn't have bombs like in that building next to us kind of thing. So it's very interesting. They all grew up in the shadow of the war in a much more direct way. Also the era. These guys are

a little older than us. But, but you're right. Their war obsession is really interesting to think about. It's clearly a big part of this band. I got to say one thing is I didn't know what they look like. We've talked a lot about how the vocals made us think that they were like, you know, Kindred spirit nerds with us. I don't think I knew it all what the band looked like. Who were they? Was the whole no pictures thing intentional? Absolutely.

It was the contrarianism goes all the way down to their record label factory, which is that movie 24-hour party people is about Tony Wilson. Their entire schick, if you will, was let's just do it differently, do it the way we want to. A big few, by the way, to London, because they're in Manchester, so it's like a smaller town. So like the music industry, it's very centered in London. I think mystery with like,

pop artist is so cool. Me too. I didn't, you know, like, Sheik went out of their way. Yeah. To not have their faces at first on, like, albums. And Roxy Music did that. And Daft Punk did that. Right.

You know, like, we didn't know what Daft look like. Ghost Face Killer. When he first came out, the reason he was called Ghost Face Killer and the Wute is because he was the one Wutei member who always had a mask on in every video. Like, I feel like, we need more mystery. Yeah. I don't need to know. Who are you, Charlie Puth?

I don't need to know. It makes it kind of more special. Yeah. And these guys didn't put their faces on Ample. I'm kidding, Charlie. Don't be mad. Oh, yeah. We love you, Charlie Pooh.

We love you, Charlie Pooh. Maybe try a mask every now and then just to mix it up if you'd like. But not because you're ugly. You're pretty. Dead mouse, he might be. He's a handsome man. Who knows? Oh, he's handsome. I think so.

That makes me angry then. Oh, I don't know. Show your face, Dead Mouse. So we've talked about the mystery element of the band. One other thing I need to point out is we talk a lot about, we think a lot about between the two of us as disco fans, the whole disco demolition moment. 1979 disco sucks. Disco ends.

Disco doesn't really end, as we all know. Disco just goes underground. And when a really important thing happens when New Order plays in New York at that show, I'm just referring to, they go out and they party and they go to all these New York nightclubs and they are exposed to disco music. And it's not just the disco music. There's many forms of disco music. There's sort of the Latin tinge. There's the black tinge. There's the gay tinge. They're going to gay nightclubs where the BPMs are crazy because Blue Monday is 1.30 BPM and Sylvester is 130 BPM. Oh yeah. There you go. And for my understanding of dance music history, there is a. BPM distinction happening in a lot of these clubs, especially in the late 70s. So they're getting these fast BPMs, everyone's popping whatever, ammo, I don't even know. And they're going crazy at 1.30, and they bring this home with them.

They bring this idea home with them. They're like, we want to make a fast dance record inspired by their experiences in New York. I think that's so cool. I mean, I've heard a similar story about Queen coming to New York specifically and hearing good times by Sheik on the radio. And then them like, oh, we got to get in the studio. and then they recorded another one bites the dust. You know, so I think that idea that, like, you come to New York and you hear some sounds in that nightlife.

It really makes me think that, like, nightlife is an important element of finding new music. Right. Oh, absolutely. And creating new music. It's the live environment. I think that's one of the worst things about since we've been in the pandemic. We've been so locked up and, like, not in the habit of going out and, like, being in physical proximity with one another.

Right. That we're not sharing genres of music the same way. It's interesting to think about that. Yeah, yeah. Speaking of high energy and high BPMs, Sylvester, Sylvester's one of our favorites, and you make me feel mighty real, one of the greats. Amazing course.

That's a 131, I think, 132 BPM track. So not only did they bring the BPMs back, they brought some of the Sylvester synth bass back, and I'm going to play a little bit of that for you right now. Please, do. So what we just heard was a programmed 16th note bass pattern. Like a human can't play that so perfectly. And it's not happening on a base star, it's happening on the MoG synth.

And it is evoking very, very closely this. I mean, first off, everybody borrows and takes and is inspired by stuff. So I don't, but that, I have never heard that, I've never heard that relation before. So directly, right. Oh, you could almost sing Blue Monday over the Sylvester. And not only is that connection there, the Sylvester connection, but there's another track with a very similar sound. on the bass, on the synth base, as well as the structure of the sound.

And that's the song that at the time, New Order was also going to their own club, the Hacienda, which had just opened in Manchester. Very important club. And this is one of the biggest hits at that club at the time. Do you know that track? I know. I know it. Classic Italo track by a Klein and MBO called Dirty Talk.

Dirty talk. Right, right. There's something I love, can I tell you one of the things I love the most? I mean, like, clearly this is like the stuff. you and I really, really like it. But what is that clap? Like, what is that? That's not like a snare.

Is that just like a hand clap? So a lot of times to get that in the early days, they would literally program white noise on a synthesizer. And you could just hit a note that had been the filters and knobs had been manipulated in such a way. Instead of getting a pitch, you would just get a, Kha. And Marauder does that too. That's so hard.

Yeah. That hand clap, no pun intended. It's slaps. It's a slappy clap. It's a sloppy clap. So, D'all, you asked me a moment ago about bass guitar because what we just heard, that synth part isn't played on bass guitar. And as you know, Hooky from Joy Division and New Order is a bass player, you know,

famous for his very melodic bass parts. I didn't know his nickname was Hooky. His name is Hooky. Peter Hook. Yeah. Peter Hookie. I did Peter Hook. Perfect because he came up for the hook in the song, which he's playing on top of the

baseline. He's a bass player not playing a bass line, but actually a. melodic part. And here it is. And just to get a little nerdy for a second, wow. That baseline, it's very EQ'd. So there's a lot, there's like a low, high pass filter. So you don't hear a lot of low end. So it can be on top of the baseline. And there's also parts later in the song where there's another bass part that's kind of used as a solo. So there are parts of the song where we've got three bass things happening at once, which is insane, but somehow works. Can I just say the whole jangly guitar with like tons of

echo on it, almost never fails. You love it every time. And if you like that, you might like where it came from. It came from somewhere? Oh, yes, it did, my friend. Whoa! What is, is that Sergio Leone? Yep, that's a soundtrack to a Sergio Leone movie called Fistful of Dollars. Fistful of Dollars, yeah. And that is, that's an Ennio Morricone track. Yeah, Morricone. Yeah. I, sorry, that's a few dollars more from the trilogy, though.

It's part of the trilogy. Right. What's crazy about that. is the second you started playing the spaghetti Western song, I knew what was going to happen. And I was like, there's a new order call back in here. Like, you know, that's insane. By the way, that was only the spaghetti Westerns given when they came out. That's only like 10 years old. You're right.

By about the time that they're using it. It's like if I, it's like if you and I took something from like Superman versus Batman. No, it's not even that long ago. It's like 10 years ago. Hooky was just happened to be watching. He tells the story. I will not call him Hookie. I don't have that relationship with Peter Hook.

It's Hookie. It's Barney. It's Steve and it's Gillian. Wait, Bernard. It goes by Barney? He goes by Barney. The disappointed look on D'allows' face. Never meet your heroes.

If I had known they were Barney and Hooky, I would have turned this radio station off. British do that and they call sandwiches like Sammy's. They're so silly. They're so silly those Brits. We're going to get into more about this song's production a little later in the show. Plus, I'm going to talk about how this song not only influenced me as a music fan, but as a music maker. All that coming up after the break, stay tuned.

Welcome back to one song. Before the break, we pulled apart the bass guitar and synth from New Order's Blue Monday to examine the band's revolutionary sound. Let's go even further into the mix. Let's do that. Do a deep dive. So one reason I loved New Order,

and I love the story of this song, is because these guys were pioneering. I mentioned, we've talked several times on the show already about this kind of punk or post-punk mentality of like, let's do things that haven't been done. Let's be experimental. Let's be weird.

Let's go against the grain. One thing they were also a pioneer in is they were early to the sampling game. I didn't know that. I didn't know that they sampled at all. There is a sample in this song. They had just gotten a very early prototype, an early example of an emulator, like a very early sampling device. I don't even know how many seconds of sampling time. It was probably like two seconds and maybe eight-bit, very low resolution.

But they used it on this track, and I'm going to show you the part they used. Okay. I'm going to play that in the mix for you. Just in case you know that one. You know what that is? Not only. I was going to say when you were playing some of the parts earlier, that I was waiting for you to tell me that the keyboardist actually was playing that.

Okay. She is. Okay. So that's a. But what about the choir? But that choir? That's not known. And as soon as I play the source, he'll be like, oh, yeah, I got that.

And here it is. Do you recognize that? That's craft work, my friend. That is uranium by craftwork. And they were one of the first. I love that craft work was making, songs. I mean, like, granted, some of those craftworks songs completely work in the clubs, but some of those

weirder craftworks songs, like, who listening to that song was like, oh, this is definitely going to rock the party. I love this drone. This is hell yeah. Hey, we're not finished guys. We need that drone. We need some of that drone sound. Yeah, that's from their radioactivity from 1975. And they grabbed a copy

of that through it in their sampler and just in the spirit of experimentation, through it in the mix. Now, of course, it is an important part of the song to this day, but it's something that you may not have noticed otherwise. Oh, I think we should actually hear a little bit of its use in the song, in the mix. Here we go, in the mix. Oh, by the way, you just singing that made me think what we're a little bit of a foreshadowing when we get to the actual vocal stems and talk about the lyrics, but what did you just sing?

You make me feel. How does it feel? Oh my gosh. Okay, revelations are happening on my life. Get hooky on the phone. Get hooky on the phone. Get Barney, Barney. Get hooky and Barney on the horn. Barney, I need a Sammy. I feel like a sugar. cigar chopping like producer. Hey, I need hooky and body. Get him on the horn. Get them on the horn.

All right. That's, I mean, this is insane. It's crazy. It's crazy town USA. This is like, you know, when you're standing at one of those

paintings and like, it's a whole bunch of different pictures, but then when you take a step back, it looks like Barack Obama's face. Like, this is incredible to see all these parts come together. That is a great analogy. That's awesome. That's right.

Absolutely true. And it's getting chills hearing all this stuff come together, though. Right. It's so interesting when you hear isolated too. And then back in the. mix. And it's like, oh, this has been there all along. I just never really noticed it. Well, you know, both of us have been drummers for a long time. And I always say that if you have a good drumbeat, you can put almost anything over that drumbeat and it kind of works. So like that, that drone over the drumbeat just feels

epic. Yeah, it is epic. That's a good word for it. You know, what's really ironic about this, this song is all of the effort, all of these new toys and new technologies. All these parts. I haven't even gotten to the part where they like programmed something. It took them all night long and then it was wrong and then they kept it. There's a lot going on that's insane. The irony of it, though, is they intended for this song to save them labor because they despise doing encores. When they were playing in New York, I was just mentioning before, they would do 27-minute shows and then leave the stage and it would cause a riot. And it got to the point where their manager was like, could you guys like come up with one more song, please? Wait, why was it causing a riot when they would- Because people paid money to see them and they leave after less than half an hour.

They wouldn't even do the encore. The encore is like this, you know, whatever. The history of encores is, oh, it's a surprise they're coming back. But of course, it's the expected thing. So their idea was like they would just push a button and sort of play this song. And that way they wouldn't have to put it in a solid 30 minutes. A thousand percent. Right.

This was a yet another up yours to the man that they would have a song that would be a push button and walk off the stage kind of situation. And then it turned out to be this track that they were like, wait, this is actually really good. I think we have a hit on our hands. And then it turns out to be the number one. That's always the way. It's always the way. Blur is like, Blur is the throwaway. disappointed with their reception in the United States

and they're like everything over there is grunge and so they make a little two-minute song called Song 2 to make fun of American Grunge and then of course that becomes the biggest blur song of all time that's always how it is you're absolutely right well you gotta be comfortable and kind of relaxed and not taking it too seriously I think sometimes in art to really stumble upon what you're capable

well this effortless throw away backfired on them big time because they put all this time and effort into it and they created a monster hit monster hit I mean I'm not above a solid like let me push this button and you know go to the bathroom. Especially if I've done 27 hardcore minutes. Put on the Patrick Callie Megamix of I feel love, go use the restroom. Oh yeah. As a DJ, sometimes those 12 minute versions are like this is perfect. Right. The worst thing that can happen though is like

there's definitely at least one time I can remember where I was in the bathroom literally in the act of and then the music cut out and then you just kind of don't know what to do. Yeah. Oh yeah. You hear people booing and stuff. I don't think it's cheating. Yeah. In most cases, you know, especially in this case where I'm sure because the drummer's not drumming and the guitarist isn't, you know, playing his guitar, there were probably people who would say that is cheating. But you know what you made me think of though? Because flashback to like moments on when I've been on stage. Because first of all, this is a band situation slightly different from a DJ, right? And that makes it worse. That does. Especially in 1983. It starts to become a little Ashley Simpson on SNL. Well, in 1983, people are like, I mean, there's not even Millie Vanilla yet to like compare it to. Like, and. And, And it's that... What would you compare it to? I mean, like, they're literally, like, you can hear all the drums,

and they're probably like, hey, the drummer's not even sitting down right now. As late as 2003 or four, when this happened to me, I just flashed on a situation because my earliest shows were, like, synth pop band shows. We didn't have a drummer,

but I had a guy, my first batch of songs, I sang, played guitar, and I had a guy, you know, hitting the drums, like, on a drum pad, like, standing up kind of thing. And I remember playing the show in the next band that came on after us,

who was managed by our manager. Like, these guys... There's a relationship there. These guys came on stage and literally on stage like a flat out rock band. Like, you know, drums, guitar, dirty hair, everything? And the guy's like, you guys ready for a band with a real drummer? And I was like, are you kidding me? It was so, like, rock.

They were like bumper stickers that said drum machines kill. Right, have no soul. Yeah, have no soul. But I think that, look, DJ's pushing a button when they could be spinning actual songs. Like, sometimes that gets. DJ-wise, I agree with you. That makes that that. Playing a playlist.

wrong way. I know there's some context where DJs just have a Spotify playlist or something like that. So like that's clearly a bridge too far. But I think on the band thing, there's kind of something cool to me about mixing it up the human and the machine element.

I'm actually always impressed when someone can play one instrument. Yeah, it is impressive. Because we've gutted the schools, man. We've got it them. So we've been teasing the iconic vocal from this track this whole episode. So we're finally going to play it for you.

These are the isolated vocals from Blue Monday by New Order. How does it feel to treat me like you do when you've laid your hands upon me and told me who you are? Thought I was mistaken. I thought I'd heard your words. Tell me how do I feel. Tell me now how do I feel. Wow, I didn't know that we were using AutoTun back then. That's a vocoder, and they had originally wanted for the whole thing to be, that robot voice thing. And then they just couldn't quite get to where they were happy with it. So they mixed it in, and that's why it's got that kind of cool blend.

Well, I was going to say, it's weird to hear the isolated vocals, the isolated vocals, because it actually sounds higher in register than I'm used to hearing it in my ears in the mix. Does that make sense? In the mix, it sounds like a deeper voice. It sounds like, how do I feel? You know, like, yeah, go for it. I think you're right. That's an interesting thing you noticed where the context of the music

kind of creates an environment where the vocal, because everything else is so hard and boom, ding, like it's so intense that his vocal kind of benefits from that. But on its own, it's a little bit... On its own, it feels a little bit higher. And, yeah, I know it's not auto-tutut. It's a vocoder, but it's like,

there's more going on with that vocal. It's not like a... just a clean vocal. Like there's, there's doubling going on and... Imperfection. There's imperfection. And I kind of like it

when it goes extra roboty at the very end of that. Oh, me too. That part's great. Yeah, I like that texture. There's kind of like a phasedy thing on it, which I hadn't really noticed before,

like a phase filter on top of it, which is very, like, when you hear it isolated, that literally could be an acapella in a daft punk song. Like that is... I was just thinking that. Right?

Doesn't that feel like something that dafunk would use? It's usually those, it's those same characteristics. It could be like a Stardust music sounds better with you is how they treat the vocals with the same things. It's a real vocal, it's a vocoder, and some phasing. They've the same, you know, checklist. You got to have all three. You got to have all three. You mentioned earlier that there's like some, some wonkiness, some timing that might be off in this

song. Yeah, it's so funny whenever I think about, like, how they put the song together, because it really brought out another side of these guys. Like, they got really nerdy. They would go home and they would learn these manuals. By the way, these are early proto, you know, these machines are hard to operate. And they just sat down and looked at these 500-page manuals and learned how to use Oberheim DMX drum machines and learn how to sequence. That's another thing where they would use the drum machine pattern to sequence the synth. That is like a revolutionary concept. They're in the middle of Manchester. There's no internet. There's a YouTube. They're figuring this stuff out for themselves. And one thing that happened a few times is they would program something and then it would get destroyed or it would get lost or it would be wrong.

So there's this one part of the song where there's a sequence that's wrong. but when they heard it in the mix they were like that's kind of cool well let's kind of like let's leave it in so I'll play that for you now I'll play it for you now isolated and then you'll be like oh it sounds all right

but in the mix it's like what is happening sounds weird but okay it sounds definitely sounds weird doesn't sound crazy doesn't sound crazy that that that sounds like it didn't quite come in at the right time right but here it is in the mix

what's funny is that is that keyboard that goes that's clear that well lined up with his vocal. The other part sounds almost like a half idea that they were like, well, we'll just bury this a little bit down in the mix. Well, it would be, it would sound right on with the rest of the sequencing, because it's this little, it's a pattern that if it was like

lined up correctly would just feel normal. And it would align with what the baseline is doing and where the chords are going. But it's off by like a 16th note or something. You can hear it. Yeah. And it's like they couldn't, they probably could have like taken five hours to reprogram everything to get it right. But they're just like, actually, this is kind of cool. Let's leave in. Because it's not like nowadays where like it's really, it's a lot easier to change things now. Exactly.

Versus back then. Right now, we could look at the screen in Ableton and like nudge, like, take the segment and move it over here at the end. But back then you had to like start from zero. Start from scratch. They're like, just leaving it. It's like this is bar 58 and like there's so much going on to like get the exactitude of what you're sequencing and programming. And there's no YouTube to help you. Of course.

And by the way, sometimes when things are wrong. like, you know, I feel like your brain kind of fixes them a little bit or just things, oh, that's where that's supposed to go. Right. I feel like, you know, hip hop producers like Dilla and Timbalin have always made use of the idea of things not landing exactly where you expect them. Right. So that they, so it sounds new and there's like some tension there.

Right. And it sounds new as a big part of it too. It's like, I haven't heard this before. Exactly. Let's see if we can't make it work and add to the vocabulary. Now it's time for a segment that we call. DJ Challenge. Luxury and I will each come up with five songs for a

secret scenario we each selected before the show. I love this game. And by the way, I am a DJ. I am also sometimes a DJ. Okay. I'm going to go first. I am, by the way, seeing this for the first time. So the secret scenario you selected for me, this is news to me. We just don't even know. I don't even know. Okay.

Here's the DJ Challenge. You get a phone call. Oh, God. Okay, it's 2005. You had to DJ a party for Prince. Oh, my God. Are you insane? I would slam the phone down and cry and run to the next city. They're going to out of love. They're going to sweeten the deal. Okay. I would, okay, just to be clear,

Prince is one of my most idly idols of all time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And my worship for him is terrifying me. That's what's happening here, because how am I going to please, how am I going to please Prince? I mean, like, notoriously unpleasible. He famously will walk out of the party if a DJ plays a Prince song.

And I can picture this because I've been to Paisley Park, So I can picture the room where this would be happening. I could picture the setup in the area away from where the costumes, well, currently are. I don't think they would have been there when he was alive. But now there's all the costumes from the other eras. What am I DJing for Prince? What are you playing for Prince?

At Paisley Park. Yeah. What time is it? It's important. It's a night. It's a night time party. Prince famous night owl. So the party starts at 1 a.m.

And has he just been playing? So like I got a leg. No, no, no. He's just going to come down in a purple room. We are just in Paisley Park. It's Prince. And I'm DJing. what's my first song? You might have lost the gig because

they're like, this guy has too many questions. Just say yes or no. Just say yes. What music do you play? And you can't play Prince. I showed up and I am totally killing time because this is terrifying. No, you've got to play something. I'm going to play something. I'm going to play. Oh, I know exactly what it is. Okay, what are you going to play? I'm going to play Jonny Mitchell. I'm going to play Joni Mitchell. Because Prince is a huge Johnny Mitchell fan.

You're going to play album cuts, I assume. I'm going to play. Because that's the other thing hard about Prince, he's not like somebody who's just casually into me. Like he knows He knows music. He's deep. He's deep. I'm going to play, or maybe I could play Mavis Staples because I just learned that he was obsessed with that. I think that's a safe bet. Yeah.

I think if it was me, I'd probably go like, you know, early 70s funk. Yeah. See, that's why I was so excited when I had the Joni Mitchell moment because I was like, oh, that would be not expected. But it's also not danceable and it would clear the dance floor and he'd be irritated. What if I, I mean, I could be risky. Yeah. I can be risky and play one of my favorite mixes of his own songs. I do love the long version of pop life from around the world in a day.

I do too. The bass line. Un-gat-go-git-go-gunk-cuh. I will say, DJ Rashida, who's out here in L.A., she did a lot of the parties for Prince, like, at his house or like whenever he had a party out in a club. And she tended to do, yeah, she was the person who told a. a friend of mine. I think she might have told me too, but she definitely told a friend of mine, you can't play Prince. Then I'm going to go with

Funkadelic. God damn, get off. I think that's the way to go. He's also a big sly fan. God damn, get off, and Jim. That's the one I'm doing. That's the one. I think that's a great answer. Thank you. Give me one. Give me a DJ challenge, the year. The year

is 2012. Oh, okay. And there's a special event happening, and it's called the inauguration. Second inauguration of Obama. Barack Obama. Okay. What you do. So we've had four years already to get used to it. That's like a nightmare scenario for me because, you know, when you DJ a party for politicians in general, I think I did one for, I did one for Villarosa.

We're in D.C. We're in D.C. Okay. Well, I was going to say I did one for L.A. Mayor Villarigosa. I think I did one for Eric Gersetti when he was running. Don't hold any of those guys against me. I need the money. Daddy had to spend some records and get some cash for his kids. You know, it's always tough because on the one hand you have a lot of, it's almost the opposite of Prince.

You have people who basically are not music experts. All they want is the result of everybody dancing. So you get that a lot. You're like, oh, God, it's the worst thing you can hear as a DJ. It's like, play something upbeat. Like, they don't know what upbeat means. They just know that that means people get up and start dancing. But also, you can't embarrass them.

like if I'm doing Obama's party, like, I can't be playing like NWA. You know, like you can't, you could literally bring down a person's career and thereby, you know, the country by your song selection. I just think it's high stakes. So if I'm playing Obama, Obama's party, I'd probably put, 2012 was Goat Ye, someone I used to know. Was that out yet? Yeah, that might have been a huge. I'd probably play that. You might be able to get away with crazy by Narls Barkley.

Like it's almost like you have to play songs that people assume the cool kids are into even though we know the cool kids are like you know what but yeah I would probably play a selection of safe bets Would you play

No go you first No I was gonna say like I know that Questlove has done Parties for the Obamas And you know some other friends I think Adam 12 DJ Adam 12 played some I'll tell you what's a safe bet

You can always play stuff like Stevie Wonder You know, like you can definitely play like the safest version, safest coolest version of like a wedding set because that's never going to really have anything offensive. It's one of those examples where you kind of don't want to make the news. Now, let's say it wasn't the Obama's. Let's say it's like some attention star people. Let's say it's like the cast of Vanderpump rules.

Like if that's the case that I'm absolutely like, first off, James Kennedy from that show is a DJ. He proudly says, I open for Cascade. So, you know, shout out to, by the way, shout out to all the people who watch Vanderpump rules. It's a guilty pleasure of mine. And I feel like with that crew, I would probably be willing to play 21 Savage, Drake, and everything else is popular on the radio.

So there you go. That's sort of the balance. For the Obama's you got to go safe for other people, it's like, make the news. Would you play Blue Monday? Could Blue Monday make the cut? Actually, you could probably play Blue Monday for Obama or the Van Gogh. It kind of works in both, doesn't it?

That's magic. You could probably do both. And Cole and the Gang Celebration would work in both. So a little earlier, we were talking about how this song made a big impression on me as a baby luxury in seventh grade. But as we've been talking about it, and as I've been listening back to the stems, it's still so fresh, first of all. I've been hearing this song for 40 years. But it's reminding me of another seminal moment in my life when I started actually making music, when I started becoming a songwriter myself. What's funny is that when I started making songs, you would never recognize luxury at the beginning.

Those first demo tapes or whatever What I was making It was all this like riff rock stoner stuff It was like Kaias are They're this stoner rock band Who later became Queens of the Stone Age The lead singer did Josh Hami It was his first entity

And it was just a slow, sludgy Black Sabbath Stoner rock Really slow tempos Like tuning down to sea So everything's like Rumble And I love that

And that's what I was making And I was talking to my friend Summer, shout out to Summer Berks she gave me a couple of like, she listened to myself. She's like, I think what it needs. She was basically suggesting that I kind of lighten the mood a little bit and be more like me, who I am. And we were talking and eventually clicked that I wanted to try using some machines.

I started thinking about New Order and the stuff that I really genuinely loved from a little earlier in my life. And I'll never forget the time. I went to rehearsal space back when I was like, had my first songs and I was looking for a band. and I would just bring a guitar and like a drum machine. And I remember being in the room playing the drum machine coming out through the giant PA monitors and playing guitar and singing and being like, this is so satisfying.

The sound of machine and man. And it's like, I'm imperfect. My guitar playing is not that great. My songs are a bit like, you know, I'm a new songwriter. There's nothing polished about this at all. This is raw. This is rough. But underneath it, there is a steady tempo that is locking everything in.

and kind of making it fun, making it danceable. And that was really the origin. I should say the new order that I was hearing come through the speakers that was my music, but I could hear where it came from. I could hear the new order being like 90% of the sound I was going for. Can I just weigh in on then and say that I think that

I think dance music is in some ways very pure. And if you think about the popularity of rock and roll taking off, like people used to play rock at sock ops so that people could dance you know and for most of its history hip hop was you know dance music it didn't mean that like that was the first goal of it but you could usually move to hip hop I think that's one of the reasons why sometimes when I hear some of the more uh let's just say emo hip hop of right now I'm like damn how could you ever dance to this like I kind of want to get back to the groove and even when you said earlier today that disco sort of ended after Kamiski Park. I think it ended as like a genre that record labels were into. But look at Off the Wall and Thriller. Those are Disco records. I feel like black audiences never gave up on disco.

Disco just sort of moved into the 80s. That's right. Because off the walls, it's into hip-hop. Hip-hop, right? Yeah, and hip-hop, like, you know, Sugar Hill Gang, that was disco. So in some ways, disco didn't go away. It just continued to evolve. And I think that what you're saying is very true.

like New Order. And again, I was the only black kid at my all-black school in elementary school listening to New Order and Pet Shop Boys and Human League and all these different groups. But I think the reason why I was into them more than the American rock bands was because

the British understood, yeah, like people want to dance. People want that groove, you know? And I think all these British groups, they didn't forsake the groove. No, the dancing is at the core of all that stuff. Yeah, absolutely. It's not guitar driven. It's still drum-driven. music. Right. And of course, you know, fine, we can make some, we can go back in time and find some

rock bands that have some dancingness to them. But essentially, you know, there is a bodiness to the live element of rock music, but it's kind of aggressive and it's like slam dancing. And, you know, it is a cathartic thing, but it's not like, rhythmic and like, you know, sexy. It's definitely not sexy. I think that the same way that a lot of live drummers were coming at drum machines, you know, they were like, oh, I got to stand out. I got to be Keith Moon, you know, but there was something about that drum machine. and I grew up in the South where we had like, you know, we had Miami Base and we had, you know, Planet Rod by Africa and Bumabato, which also samples craftwork. Yes, it does.

All that stuff. Interpolates. The dance, yeah, the dance was very important. I'm so sorry. I had to give you an interpolation. No, no, no. We don't actually get paid unless you whisper. It's my brand.

I get it. Well, Diallo, I am so glad we got to talk about New Order today because it's just a personal, my personal connection to the band to this song is so deep in ways. in ways that I didn't even realize until we were halfway through this talking about it just now. Like the epiphanies were happening live on air. I was learning live on air. I didn't know half as much that I thought I knew about this song. And I loved hearing about your experiences with the band in the song too. My man, luxury, do you have any final words for seventh grade luxury?

Oh, hang in there, buddy. It gets so much better. Yeah. But also hold on to this anecdote because it'll be funny in 40 years. 40 years? That's a little more than it works. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's be generous.

It'll be funny. No, you know what? Maybe you're right. maybe you need a few more years and then it's going to truly be bad. I'm not quite healed as this show demonstrates this semi-therapeutic show. It's been great though. But in season two of this show, you're going to be like, I'm silent. I'm finally over it.

I'm going to say, how do you feel? And your reply will be. Mighty real. Oh, there you go. Well, luxury, help me in this thing. All right. Well, coming from me, luxury, DJ songwriter and interpolation whisperer. And me, Dialla Riddle, actor, director, writer, and sometimes DJ.

This has been one song.