Fact or Fiction? New Order’s 1983 Song “Blue Monday” Is the Best-Selling 12-Inch Single in History

The music industry is full of persistent myths and urban legends, from behind-the-scenes details of recordings to sales records—including the popularity of English band New Order’s 1983 hit “Blue Monday,” said to be the best-selling 12-inch single of all time.

Typically, sales numbers are easily verifiable, and rumors about them can be debunked. But at the time, New Order’s label, Factory Records, was not part of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), meaning there is no clear record of exactly how many copies of “Blue Monday” were sold. However, Official Charts does claim that the single will “rack up 700,000 sales on the format to become the biggest selling 12-inch of all time.”

Record or not, “Blue Monday” was undeniably a hit. It spent an impressive 186 weeks—or just over 3 ½ years—on the UK Independent Singles Chart and has sold over 1 million copies in the UK alone across all formats, including re-releases in 1988 and 1995. Over 700,000 of those sales are from the original 1983 release.

The high sales numbers can be attributed to the fact that it’s a great song, of course, but there are a few other factors that may have contributed to its success. Most notably, the song was available exclusively as a 12-inch for a few years—it wasn’t released as a 7-inch, as most other singles are, until 1988, five years after its original release.

Is “Blue Monday” a Response to Fan Complaints?

But the success of “Blue Monday” isn’t the only piece of lore surrounding it. According to bassist Peter Hook, Factory Records actually lost money on the pressing due to the design of the die-cut sleeve, which was shaped like a floppy disc. The cover’s designer, Peter Saville, questioned this in an interview with The Guardian, however, saying, “Nobody ever said to me: ‘This is a costly sleeve.’” It’s also been said that New Order wrote the song in response to fan complaints that they never played encores, with the intention of simply pressing “play” on a synthesizer as they left the stage.

“Blue Monday” defined New Order’s career, and its legacy lives on today. It’s considered a crucial bridge between ’70s disco and ’80s dance/house music, and it’s also been sampled in dozens of other songs. Its success has continued in the modern-day era of streaming—it’s also the band’s most-streamed song by far, with over 500 million streams on Spotify alone, and that number will only keep increasing.

(Photo by Leon Morris/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)