Rock of Ages: New Order - "Bizarre Love Triangle" (1985)

Of all the synth pop and new wave crap of the 80's, there were diamonds in the rough. The drug addled dance pop phenomenon led to crap acts like Wang Chung and A-Ha that, although kitschy and fun to laugh and dance to, just plain suck in general. Luckily we also had a band like New Order who took it's Joy Division roots and amped up the speed and synthed out the hooks making thoughtful and beautiful synth music. In 1986, New Order released their fourth album Brotherhood and on it, a beautiful synth dance track "Bizarre Love Triangle" as the first single from this album. Although at that point the song failed to garner as much success as their moodier and longer single "Blue Monday" there is something much more special about "Bizarre Love Triangle." It has all the moodiness and sad lyrics of their earlier gloomy synth dance music, but it has a much more upbeat ryhthm and hook.

New Order's "Bizarre Love Triangle" is set with a backdrop of groovy, bassy blips and a catchy drum beat that is easy to move your feet to. It's still played in clubs around the world, or at least in the Philadelphia metro area. Lyrically the song is beautiful. A story of confusion and loss, embedded in a catchy catchy song. It's classic songwriting, blues if you will, that is juxtaposed with a happier much more heavenly melody. New Order has so many great songs that follow this same formula, such as "Age of Consent" and "True Faith", but for me, "Bizarre Love Triangle" just does it perfectly.



Up Next: Tom Waits growls as usual