"Rather naively, we thought we'd write a song that could be played by machines and all we'd have to do was press the button": The real reason New Order made Blue Monday, and the gear that powers it

The whole Blue Monday thing - as in the third Monday of January being scientifically the most dismal day of the year - may be hokum cooked up by an ingenious travel company's PR arm, but let's face it, it rings depressingly true. That must be at least partly thanks to the catchy name - a label with traction only because of one of the most important and influential tracks ever produced.

It seems the track was a practical solution to a gigging problem. "We didn't play encores," recalled New Order's Bernard Sumner in 2012, "and we were getting into a lot of trouble over it.