We're off to leafy Dorking today, for our friend Louise's 50th birthday. It seems appropriate to celebrate with a "timeslip moment" from the 80s - a decade when we were all at our prime...
Thirty-three years ago, in early March 1983: AIDS was in the news (constantly), as the US government was under fire for its lack of health promotion advice; the compact disc (CD) and the Austin Maestro went on sale, and IBM launched PC DOS version 2.0; Bob Hawke was elected Prime Minister of Australia; and Torvill & Dean (soon to stun the Winter Olympics the following year) won the World Ice Dance Championship. On our screens were Local Hero, Baby It's You and Without a Trace; and on telly, Sons and Daughters, Tucker's Luck and the fallout from the Deirdre-Ken-Mike saga on Coronation Street.
This week in 1983's charts Bonnie Tyler was supreme, and in her wake: Eurythmics, Michael Jackson, Forrest, Bananarama, Style Council, Toto, Modern Romance and Orange Juice were all riding high. But waiting in the wings, ready to conquer all, was a first - released only on 12" single, it soon set the bar significantly high for dance-pop-crossover music for the rest of the decade.
It is of course New Order's Blue Monday!
But hold fast chums... What would it have sounded like if it had been made 50 years earlier? Using only instruments available in the 1930s - from the theremin and musical saw to the harmonium and prepared piano - let's hear Orkestra Obsolete play their own take on it:
And, of course, here's the original:
Blue Monday on Wikipedia.
Catalogue model #2 is giving off a "Miami Vice" vibe, which would change men's fashion in 1984.
ReplyDeleteI still wear it. Jx
DeleteThat Obsolete number is the absolute best.
ReplyDeleteIt's a wonderful thing, baby! Jx
DeleteOnly you could come up with Blue Monday played on a theremin and a saw
ReplyDeleteIt's a skill... Jx
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