Bizarre Love Triangle

"Bizarre Love Triangle"
Single by New Order
from the album Brotherhood
Released	5 November 1986[1]
Format	7" single 12" single
Recorded	January 1986 (London)
Genre	Synth-pop[2][3] new wave[2]
Length	4:21
Label	Factory (FAC 163)
Songwriter(s)	Gillian Gilbert Peter Hook Stephen Morris Bernard Sumner[4]
Producer(s)	New Order
New Order singles chronology
"State of the Nation" (1986) "Bizarre Love Triangle" (1986) "True Faith" (1987)
Music video
"Bizarre Love Triangle‬” on YouTube

"Bizarre Love Triangle" is a song by the English rock band New Order, released as a single in 1986 from their fourth studio album, Brotherhood (1986), which reached the top five on the US Hot Dance Music/Club Play Singles chart,^[5] and No. 5 on the Australian ARIA Charts (No. 1 on the Victoria state chart) in March 1987.^[6]

It failed to make the top 40 in either the United Kingdom (only reaching No. 56^[7]) or the US Billboard Hot 100. In the United States, the song reached No. 8 on the Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales chart, but failed to chart on the Hot 100 during its original 1986 release. However, a new mix included on The Best of New Order was released in 1994 and finally made a brief appearance on the Billboard Hot 100 in the number 98 position in 1995.

In 2004 the song was ranked number 201 in Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".

Releases

The 12-inch version, remixed by Shep Pettibone, also appears on the compilation Substance and a second remix by Stephen Hague features on their Best Of album. The original album version appears on the 2005 compilation Singles. New Order's live versions since 1998 are based on the Shep Pettibone remix.^[8]

The single mix features a cleaner sound with more electronics than the album version, notably the Fairlight CMI music workstation, the premier sampling keyboard workstation of the '80s, used to provide novel sounds, such as the orchestral hits that were so popular, but also to sequence the song. All instruments except vocals and Peter Hook's melodic bass were sequenced (the song also prominently features synthesised bass and synth choir parts).^[9]

Music video

The music video, which was released in November 1986, was directed by American artist Robert Longo. It prominently featured shots of a man and a woman in business suits flying through the air as though propelled by trampolines; this is based directly on Longo's "Men in the Cities" series of lithographs.^[10] The video also features a black and white cut-scene where Jodi Long and E. Max Frye are arguing about reincarnation, in which Long emphatically declares "I don't believe in reincarnation because I refuse to come back as a bug or as a rabbit!" Frye responds, "You know, you're a real 'up' person," before the song resumes.

Cover versions

• "Bizarre Love Triangle" has been covered by many artists, such as The Black Eyed Peas, Even As We Speak, Manitu, Commercial Breakup (by Vredeber Albrecht), Devine and Statton, Sita, Tony DeSare, South, Rookie of the Year, Apoptygma Berzerk, Stabbing Westward, Jaymay, Charlotte Martin, Anne Curtis, Vendetta, Nouvelle Vague, The Speaks, Makana, Echosmith, Apostle of Hustle, Glaiza de Castro and Zeus.
• Australian band Frente! released an acoustic cover version of the song in 1994. Despite not charting in their home country, this was the band's only major overseas hit, reaching number 49 on the US Billboard Hot 100,^[11] number 53 in Canada,^[12] and number 76 in the United Kingdom.^[13]
• The song was also remixed in 2005 by The Crystal Method (for their album Community Service II) and by Richard X (for the New Order single "Waiting for the Sirens' Call").
• It was remade into Chinese with the Cantonese version by Amanda Lee and the Mandarin version, by Sandy Lam, both under the title of "一個人 / Yī Gè Rén" ("Alone").
• Brandon Flowers of The Killers, a band owing their name to New Order,^[14] has played "Bizarre Love Triangle" solo on piano at several of The Killers' concerts, as seen in widely circulated YouTube videos.
• American alternative rock band Nada Surf performed a version of the song in May 2012 for The A.V. Club's A.V. Undercover series.^[15]
• American alternative metal band New Years Day covered the song on their 2018 EP "Diary of a Creep".
• Fairmont released their version of this song in 2001 on "Pretending Greatness is Awaiting" on Mint 400 Records.

Usage in media

The song was played on Fox animated series The Simpsons episode "Future-Drama".

The song was featured in the 1988 film, Married to the Mob, and the 2010 film, Hot Tub Time Machine.

Track listing

All tracks written by Gillian Gilbert, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, Bernard Sumner.

• Initial pressings (matrix FAC-26-A) were the UK 7" mix,^[16] later pressings (matrix FAC-26-A2) were the Canadian 7" mix^[17]

• US editions mis-credit "Bizarre Dub Triangle" as "I Don't Care", reputedly due to a record company person contacting New Order's Manager Rob Gretton to ask what to name the mix as, Gretton is claimed to have said "I don't care"^[18]

Weekly charts

References