In this Reminiscings of Youth article, I will let you know what the "power" songs were with my university friends and I when we hit the discos back in the 80s. I may have already mentioned at least some of them in past articles but here goes: Ministry's "Every Day is Halloween", Paul Lekakis' "Boom Boom" (although not my personal favourite), and Depeche Mode's "Strangelove".
Then, there were the works of British band New Order. I swear that all of their songs were worthy of wearing out our shoes on the dance floor, no matter how late the hour, but the one single that had us rushing from our drinks, conversation and tables was the Extended Mix of "Bizarre Love Triangle". As was the case with Pet Shop Boys and the aforementioned Depeche Mode, New Order had its own distinctive sound when it came to the synthesizers, bass and percussion, plus of course, Bernard Sumner's cooing vocals. No matter where we went to dance, whether it be the Copa, the Diamond or Sparkles in the CN Tower, the DJ would always play the Extended Mix...had to keep the joy going for as long as possible.
"Bizarre Love Triangle" was released in early November 1986. I remember that our disco-ing days began soon after I joined the inaugural form of the Japan-Canada Students' Association when it started up in that same month, so the timing was excellent. From what I've read of the song on Wikipedia, I gather that my fellow club members and I weren't alone in our love of the song. Although it didn't exactly set the general charts in the US or the UK on fire, it did well on the dance and indies charts and has been included in Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" at No. 204 as of 2004.
I can no longer see myself getting anywhere close to a dance floor nowadays except in the possible position of a chaperone which is just as well. If I hear "Bizarre Love Triangle" again in that situation, my legs may just propel me back onto the floor. That would probably launch this reaction from the younger folk:
Anyhow, since the release date of "Bizarre Love Triangle" was November 5th 1986, what were the Top 3 songs on Oricon's October 1986 list?
1. Akemi Ishii -- Cha-Cha-Cha
2. Akina Nakamori -- Fin
3. Marina Watanabe with Onyanko Club -- Shinkokyuu shite（深呼吸して）
Other New Order songs were more noted in my circles, such as the legendary Blue Monday, but I always had a liking for Bizarre Love Triangle, long before I knew there were covers of it. The '94 version is my favourite, probably because of its clean rock arrangement.
ReplyDeleteGood evening, Jim. I missed out on "Blue Monday" since I was a few days late for the actual Blue Monday, so I decided to go with "Bizarre Love Triangle" instead. I figured that I had to do a New Order song for a ROY article sometime soon.
DeleteMy all-time greatest dance tunes:
ReplyDelete1) Rock Lobster, B-52's
2) Bizarre Love Triangle, New Order
That's the list!
Hi, Saburo! For me, it was "Strangelove" by Depeche Mode and "Bizarre Love Triangle" by New Order. I'm sure there were others but those are the ones that I remember immediately.
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