Daily Jam - Bizarre Love Triangle

As I get older, time seems to become more and more fluid, where something that happened ten years ago can feel like it was just a few months ago, where a whole series of endless moments and memories ebb and flow feeling simultaneously closer and farther away. The duration of time is not as long as it used to be. Five years doesn’t seem like it was that long ago anymore, whereas that same amount of days, weeks, months, and years felt like an enormous spread of existence when I was younger. Music is particularly affected by this. For example, Portishead’s Third came out in 2008, eight years ago*, but in the grand scheme of the way my mind works, it may as well have been released last year. It doesn’t feel like it was eight years ago at all. The duration of eight years is now insignificant. But, that’s the same number of years between when New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle” came out (on the 1986 album Brotherhood) and when I finally started rediscovering the band in the 9th grade (1994), and that felt like eons, like it was part of the long, long ago.

It only took a small amount of actual, countable time for the music from the 80’s to feel like it was from a long time ago, and a considerable longer amount for the music from the 90’s to feel the same way. Pretty much everything since could have come out yesterday as far as my brain and perception are concerned. What’s strange is that the stuff I jam to from the 80’s doesn’t feel as long ago as it did when I was a teenager, despite the longer time frame. It’s like I’m in some perpetual loop where sounds feel far away and then closer and then far away again and then closer again. My old jams almost feel fresher than a lot of the stuff they preceded. But then, “Bizarre Love Triangle” was always going to sound pretty damn cool.

Time is fluid. Time is moving. Time is not what it used to be. But good music is good music, regardless of when I hear it.

Listen below, our Daily Jam.

*Coincidentally enough, this column was originally posted eight years ago.