Dear listeners,
Today’s playlist is all about one of popular music’s favorite shapes: the love triangle.
Full of drama, secrets and passion, songs about love triangles have never exactly gone out of style. But as I’ve been considering some of the patterns and trends in this past year of pop music, I’ve noticed that they’re more popular — and in some cases, subversive — than ever.
This year has specifically been full of songs in which the singer is unusually fixated on “the other woman.” The most successful is “Taste,” a sassy, innuendo-stuffed pop-country smash by one of the year’s breakout stars, Sabrina Carpenter. “I’ve heard you’re back together,” she sings to her love interest’s former and current squeeze. “And if that’s true, you’ll just have to taste me when he’s kissing you.” That refrain has more than a hint of queer subtext, which Carpenter makes explicit in the campy, surprisingly gory music video, which ends with her kissing her female rival (played by Jenny Ortega) and the two accidentally killing their shared beau. In a twist, they’re not terribly bothered by it.
But “Taste” wasn’t the only 2024 song with an eye on the other point of the triangle. Released in March, Olivia Rodrigo’s “Obsessed” — a track from the deluxe edition of “Guts” — finds the singer haunted by the imagined perfection of her current partner’s ex-girlfriend: “If I told you how much I think about her, you’d think I was in love,” she sings. Another prominent triangular tune, Billie Eilish’s “Wildflower,” from “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” has become such a beloved fan favorite that it has spent 26 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. “I see her in the back of my mind, all the time,” Eilish sings of a partner’s ex — whom Eilish comforted when they first broke up, causing her to wonder, “Did I cross the line?”
These songs all suggest some sort of transference and, at times, even a flirtation with both opposing points on the love triangle. Pop songs about same-sex desire are not nearly as taboo as they once were, and I suspect the surge in these sorts of songs reflect that shift.
But in another sense, they’re telling a tale as old as time, a point I wanted to underscore by putting them in conversation with some older tracks. On today’s playlist, you’ll hear all the aforementioned songs, along with classics from the Cars, Loretta Lynn and Robyn, among other artists. It also features a certain global superstar’s 2024 remake of the ultimate “other woman” song, “Jolene.” No matter how you slice it, it seems, three’s a crowd.
I know I’ve been known to share,
Lindsay
Listen along while you read.
1. Sabrina Carpenter: “Taste”
Maybe it’s recency bias, but I’m starting to think this might be my favorite of the year’s three massive Sabrina Carpenter hits. The Shania twang in her voice! The smoldering guitar tone! That perfectly placed kick drum right before the chorus comes in! This is glossy, go-for-broke pop music done right.
2. The Cars: “My Best Friend’s Girl”
Speaking of sleek pop musical perfection (and glistening guitars), lyrical storytelling does not get more succinct than this: “She’s my best friend’s girl, but she used to be mine.” A tragedy in 11 words!
3. Olivia Rodrigo: “Obsessed”
“I’m so obsessed with your ex,” Olivia Rodrigo sings, as this song suddenly transforms from a creeping, horror-movie soundtrack to a cathartic rock freak-out.
4. Loretta Lynn: “Fist City”
The country legend Loretta Lynn was no stranger to tough-talking songs that issued a warning to the other woman — see also: “You Ain’t Woman Enough (to Take My Man)” — but I’m partial to this feisty 1968 hit. “If you don’t want to go to Fist City, you better detour around my town,” she tells someone rumored to be loving her man. “’Cause I’ll grab you by the hair of your head and I’ll lift you off of the ground.” I do not condone violence, but given the fact that Lynn was a petite 5’2, I’d honestly love to see it.
5. Brandy & Monica: “The Boy Is Mine”
With the musical chemistry that these two have on this 1998 smash, who even needs to know the boy’s name? (An aside that has forever changed how I hear this song: Ten years ago, I interviewed the angel-voiced British folk legend Vashti Bunyan, who surprised me by revealing how much she loves the instrumental arrangement of “The Boy Is Mine.” When her grandson was young, she would play it for him “when he couldn’t settle, and he went quiet instantly. There’s something about the introduction to that song.”)
6. SZA: “The Weekend”
Here’s an unconventional love triangle: “My man is my man is your man, heard that’s her man too,” SZA sings on this slinky highlight from her 2017 album, “Ctrl.” Rather than get all torn up about it, SZA suggests a rather practical arrangement: “You take Wednesday, Thursday, then just send him my way / Think I got it covered for the weekend.”
7. Beyoncé: “Jolene”
The modern ur-text of pop songs more fixated on the other woman than the man is, of course, Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” a tale of desperation that finds repeated, resonant beauty in the musical-sounding name of an auburn-haired temptress. Beyoncé gave it a fiery update on her 2024 album “Cowboy Carter,” though she transformed its driving emotion by flipping the original song’s power imbalance. Parton is begging, but Beyoncé is warning this Jolene, “Don’t come for my man.”
8. Arlo Parks: “Eugene”
From “Jolene” we move to “Eugene,” a poignant, vividly rendered tale of (possibly?) unrequited queer love by the British singer-songwriter Arlo Parks. “We’ve been best buds since 13, but that don’t change the things I feel oh, when I see you smile with your teeth at Eugene,” Parks sings over a gently murmuring guitar riff, her repressed jealousy finally seeping out all over this confessional song.
9. Billie Eilish: “Wildflower”
The memory of past heartbreak lingers and echoes throughout this muted, wrenching ballad. Told from the perspective of a woman currently dating the person who broke a friend’s heart, a mournful Eilish recalls, “She was crying on my shoulder, all I could do was hold her / Only made us closer, until July.” But the phantom ex is still there in her mind, perhaps as an object of desire herself: “Every time you touch me, I just wonder how she felt.”
10. Robyn: “Call Your Girlfriend”
Finally, let’s go out with a banger: a fist-pumping synth-pop anthem from Robyn’s 2010 treasure trove “Body Talk.” Cheating has never sounded as benevolent as it does here, with Robyn advising a new flame on how to politely break up with a current girlfriend: “Tell her that the only way her heart will mend is when she learns to love again, and it won’t make sense right now but you’re still her friend.” I guess they really do things differently in Sweden.
The Amplifier Playlist
“A Bizarre Love Triangle Playlist” track list
Track 1: Sabrina Carpenter, “Taste”
Track 2: The Cars, “My Best Friend’s Girl”
Track 3: Olivia Rodrigo, “Obsessed”
Track 4: Loretta Lynn, “Fist City”
Track 5: Brandy & Monica, “The Boy Is Mine”
Track 6: SZA, “The Weekend”
Track 7: Beyoncé, “Jolene”
Track 8: Arlo Parks, “Eugene”
Track 9: Billie Eilish, “Wildflower”
Track 10: Robyn, “Call Your Girlfriend”
Bonus Tracks
While its lyrics are a little too ambiguous to fit in with the rest of these songs, I would be remiss if I did not mention this playlist’s namesake, New Order’s glorious “Bizarre Love Triangle.” If you’ve got a few extra minutes, here’s the extended dance mix.
The post A Bizarre Love Triangle Playlist appeared first on New York Times.
