Friday, June 12, 2009

Retrovideo Friday: Before they were Doves

Once again, a minor note: I'm sorry about the delays with my posts this week. I'm still a little under the weather, so that's been messing with my schedule a bit.

Moving on! This week's Retrovideo Friday explores a band before they became the band we know today. A lot of musicians have a tendency to evolve — many of the bands we know started out with a different name or different sound. Doves — the band I saw in concert last week and reviewed — are among those groups that had a very different (and interesting) start, which is why we have...

This Week's Pick: "Ain't No Love (Ain't No Use)" by Sub Sub, featuring Melanie Williams (Year: 1993)

Before they became the Doves, Jimi Goodwin, Jez and Andy Williams were a dance act that went by the name Sub Sub. The group actually had a bit of success in this incarnation. Their 1993 single "Ain't No Love (Ain't No Use)," featuring guest vocalist Melanie Williams, reached #3 on the UK Singles Chart. They released a full-length album the following year, but didn't really seem to achieve the same sort of success as they did with the single.

It's interesting to listen to "Ain't No Love (Ain't No Use)" and watch its video — it isn't very Doves-like at all, and frankly everything about both the song and video is very stereotypically 90s.

But as we all know, Doves eventually evolved, and it was actually the result of a tragedy. After a fire destroyed their studio, the band moved on, changing their name from Sub Sub to Doves in the late nineties and developing their current sound.

Watch the video for "Ain't No Love (Ain't No Use)" below to get a taste of what the Doves were like 16 years ago. And in a Retrovideo Friday first, watch another video (featuring the Doves playing the title track and "Winter Hill" from this year's Kingdom of Rust on Later with Jools Holland). What do you find most striking about their transformation?




2 comments:

  1. Interesting. The only Sub Sub I've heard was when I got "This Time I'm Not Wrong" recently because it features Bernard Sumner on vocals. That sound sounds more or less like the Doves already, so this was a surprise!

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  2. KEYTAR!!! Kangol hats! Gotta love the early 90s.

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