“Bizarre Love Triangle” by New Order, Wednesday, June 22, 2022
For as legendary as New Order and the band's predeceasing band Joy Division are today, it's interesting to see how long it took for the the band to enjoy the fruits of their labor. While Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" has been featured in so many period pieces leading us who weren't alive back then to think that Joy Division was omnipresent, it seems that Joy Division is actually way more popular today than back then. That being said, Joy Division wasn't an obscure band, with the song being a #13 hit in the UK and charting on the dance chart in the States. So why was New Order's success slow?
I FEEL FINE AND I FEEL GOOD. Reforming as a New Order following the suicide of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis, New Order's early discography was far less commercial than their later work. New Order was a jam band, and in the '80s, synthesizers were all the rage. But while many New Wavers started to kowtow to the pop radio--cutting their songs to radio format and writing accessible lyrics, New Order was mostly enjoyed in the clubs across Europe. In fact, the radio singles that the band had prior to their third record, Low-Life, were not on their first two records but rather only issued as singles. Today's song, "Bizarre Love Triangle" comes from the band's fourth album, Brotherhood, and seems much catchier than the songs on the band's earlier records. The 1986 album perhaps helped to usher the band into their golden age of beginning in 1987 with the re-issuing of their singles in a compilation called Substance 1987. The golden age of New Order from 1987 to 1993 cemented the band's legacy as the band's band that influenced the indie bands of today. Listening to New Order's discography, there seems to be a difference between their singles and the early albums. And while 1983's "Blue Monday" does display hit potential, it's "Bizarre Love Triangle" that refines the band's sound of layered keyboards, grooving bass, electronic drums, and sparse guitar to a radio-friendly format. The instruments are conversational--not too complicated, not too fast, making the song easy to digest.
YOU SAY THE WORDS THAT I CAN'T SAY. Being a digital music listener, I experienced "Bizarre Love Triangle" connecting the title with the song, but from podcasts I listened to today, it seems that listeners both fail to connect song and the title and fail to understand the meaning of the lyrics, even after reading them. This has made some make a huge mistake of playing it at their wedding. While the focus of the song is on the instruments, the lyrics do raise questions about who's involved in this love triangle and what are the final words that the speaker can't say? With love triangles being a major plot point in stories both fact and fiction since the dawn of time, I wonder what makes a love triangle bizarre? In the '80s, the band had ties with gay clubs--their songs were played in gay clubs, and, lead singer Bernard Sumner told Out Magazine that the band spent time in gay clubs after recording "Blue Monday" because "Straight clubs were stiff --you couldn't get in wearing jeans, trainers, or a T-shirt. And when you were in, it wasn't worth it because the music was shit." The idea of a "bizarre love triangle" certainly could resonate with queer and straight audiences alike. But why is there so much praying to be with the other person? Is it about an affair? That doesn't sound bizarre. But what does sound bizarre is playing this song at a wedding.
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