The Daily Epic Earworm For December 20, 2025
Everyone gets songs stuck in their heads that just won’t go away. They sneak into your subconscious. They are epic earworms that you find yourself humming uncontrollably, singing in the shower, or tapping the beat to with your foot or ballpoint pen when you should be working. Sometimes they even keep you awake at night. Whether they are current hits, one-hit wonders, movie soundtrack gems, holiday favorites, or songs from your youth, their catchy vocals, riffs, hooks, and choruses seem to linger for days.
Here, those songs find a home, no matter the genre. Here, those epic earworms are revisited, explained, and celebrated. Here, you may find the song that haunts you tomorrow. Here is today’s unescapable song of the day…and the story behind it.
Today’s Epic Earworm: New Order — “Blue Monday”
In 1980, English synth-pop band New Order rose from the ashes of Joy Division after the death of the latter’s lead singer, Ian Curtis. It did not take the new band long to find success. In 1983, New Order released the single “Blue Monday.” The epic earworm was a worldwide success for years, staying on some countries’ charts for as long as 186 weeks at a time. Between the song’s initial release and its subsequent remixes and reissues, it has charted in five different years and sold well over a million copies.
The Song That Sold Too Much
British indie label Factory Records put out the initial release of “Blue Monday” as a 12″ single. The band’s design for the packaging of the single featured a die-cut sleeve designed to resemble a 5 1/4th-inch floppy disk. Unfortunately for the band and the label, the cost of the unique packaging made the single cost more to produce the purchase price, so they lost money on every copy sold. The label had no confidence in the record and didn’t expect the costly packaging to be a big deal. The label learned its lesson and produced a cheaper version after the initial run sold out.
