New Order’s Brotherhood Turns 40: Remembering a 1986 New Wave Classic
Released 40 years ago today, Brotherhood captured New Order at a fascinating crossroads between its post-punk roots and the electronic dance music that would increasingly define the band. Its enduring centerpiece, “Bizarre Love Triangle,” became one of the essential alternative records of the 1980s.
Forty years ago, New Order released an album that effectively placed two sides of its musical personality on the same record.
Brotherhood, New Order’s fourth studio album, arrived in September 1986 through Factory Records. The anniversary is being marked today, September 29, as the record reaches the four-decade milestone. Contemporary anniversary coverage notes how deliberately the album contrasted guitar-oriented post-punk with the increasingly electronic approach that was reshaping New Order’s identity.
That combination produced one of the band’s most enduring songs: “Bizarre Love Triangle.”
Rock on One Side, Electronics on the Other
By 1986, New Order had already traveled an extraordinary distance.
Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris had emerged from the end of Joy Division, added keyboardist Gillian Gilbert and gradually developed a sound in which guitars, bass and drums could coexist with synthesizers, sequencers and club-oriented rhythms.
Brotherhood made that dual identity particularly obvious.
The original album opened with “Paradise” and continued through songs including “Weirdo,” “As It Is When It Was,” “Broken Promise” and “Way of Life.” Its second half shifted more strongly toward electronics, beginning with “Bizarre Love Triangle” and continuing through “All Day Long,” “Angel Dust” and the memorably titled closing track “Every Little Counts.”
The album reached No. 9 on the UK Albums Chart, giving New Order another Top 10 record.
“Bizarre Love Triangle” Became the Classic
“Bizarre Love Triangle” has ultimately enjoyed a cultural life far beyond its original chart performance.
Surprisingly, the single reached only No. 56 on the UK Singles Chart when it appeared in 1986. Yet the song became one of New Order’s signature recordings, especially in the United States, where the band’s mixture of alternative rock and electronic dance music found an enthusiastic audience on college radio and in clubs.
Its combination of synthesizer hooks, programmed rhythms and Sumner’s understated vocal now sounds unmistakably connected to the decade, while remaining influential well beyond it.
Another song associated with the album period, “State of the Nation,” reached No. 30 in Britain in September 1986.
The Brotherhood Archive Has Grown
Fans wanting to explore the album beyond the original recording now have substantially more material available.
In 2024, New Order and Warner Music released Brotherhood: Definitive Edition. The limited box included the remastered album on vinyl and CD, nine previously unreleased tracks and demos from a 1985 Japanese recording session, plus two DVDs containing performances from Brixton Academy, Manchester’s G-Mex, Glastonbury and television appearances.
Warner’s Rhino label expanded the catalog again in December 2025 with additional two-CD and Blu-ray editions of several early New Order albums, including Brotherhood.
Why ’80s Fans Should Care
Brotherhood represents something larger than a successful New Order album. It documents a moment when the boundaries between rock, new wave, alternative music and dance culture were becoming increasingly porous.
New Order was uniquely positioned at that intersection.
The guitars and Peter Hook’s distinctive bass still connected the band to its post-punk origins, while its growing command of synthesizers and sequencers pointed toward the electronic music that would become increasingly important during the remainder of the decade.
And then there is “Bizarre Love Triangle.”
Forty years later, its opening sequence remains one of those sounds capable of identifying an era within seconds—making Brotherhood a particularly appropriate anniversary for ’80s Music Radio to celebrate.
