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Released on 29th March 1993, 'Ain't No Love' is destined for the charts... Sub Sub are brothers Jez and Andy Williams and Jimi Goodwin - the breathtaking vocal on the track comes from Temper Temper's Melanie Williams.No, of course it's not that Andy Williams, who didn't even make it to a Now album when 'Music To Watch Girls By' was a hit in 1999. and as far as I can tell Melanie Williams isn't related to either of the Williams brothers. She's a good singer though, and even managed to reproduce the performance live on The Word. Although none of the people involved had ever had a hit before, 'Ain't No Love' must have been a pretty hot track by the time it was actually released to get straight onto a Now album, and in a prominent placing too. It was a good bet though, as the single entered the chart at 10 this week 22 years ago and ultimately climbed to a Top 3 peak. I said "must have been" because I have so little memory of pop music in 1993 - I wasn't listening to music radio or watching Top Of The Pops regularly, and the kids at my school who talked about music all seemed to be into grunge and metal. If I ever did hear this track in '93 it left no impression on me and indeed it was nothing to do with the music I was interested in throughout that decade.
With hindsight, it's actually really rather good in a disco-house sort of way and although I might not go out of my way to listen to it, I do enjoy when I do hear it. I don't mean it as any kind of insult to say that I also like the brevity of the radio edit. It proved to be Sub Sub's only Top 40 appearance, and by the time they released a studio album with this on eighteen months later the momentum seemed gone. A series of other misfortunes befell them before they regrouped (and eventually returned to the Now series) as the more earnest Doves. Unfortunately they did their own singing then.
Also appearing on: Now 52, 60 [both as Doves]
Available on: Hacienda 30
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