The 1990s File Feature
Part Time Lover/I'm Still In Love With You
H-Town and Al B. Sure!'s Double-Sided Chart Story: "Part Time Lover / I'm Still In Love With You" Two Acts, One Billboard Entry The spring of 1994 on the Bil…
01 The Story
H-Town and Al B. Sure!'s Double-Sided Chart Story: "Part Time Lover / I'm Still In Love With You"
Two Acts, One Billboard Entry
The spring of 1994 on the Billboard Hot 100 was full of R&B, and near the middle of the chart sat an unusual entry: a double-sided single pairing H-Town's "Part Time Lover" with Al B. Sure!'s "I'm Still In Love With You." The listing of two artists and two titles under a single chart position was not common, but it reflected a particular commercial strategy occasionally employed by labels during this era. H-Town were a Houston-based R&B trio who had already made a significant impression with their 1993 debut single, while Al B. Sure! was a New Jack Swing veteran who had established himself in the late 1980s with a distinctive high tenor and a smooth production aesthetic. The pairing was an attempt to leverage the commercial appeal of both acts simultaneously through a combined release.
The Chart Journey
This unusual entry debuted on the Hot 100 during the week of April 16, 1994, at position 86. It moved with measured progress through the spring, climbing to 73, holding near that position for a week, then continuing upward through 66 and 61. The peak came during the week of June 25, 1994, when it reached number 57. The total Hot 100 residency stretched to 16 weeks, a meaningful showing for a double-sided release that occupied an unusual commercial space. The patient climb through the chart's middle section reflects radio programming decisions and a steady audience rather than a sudden splash of cultural attention.
H-Town's New Jack Inheritance
H-Town, formed by brothers Dino and Solomon Conner along with Shazam Conner, had emerged from Houston's active R&B scene with a sound rooted in the New Jack Swing tradition that Teddy Riley had pioneered in the late 1980s. Their 1993 breakthrough demonstrated that audiences were still hungry for the combination of tough rhythmic production and vulnerable romantic lyrics that New Jack had perfected. "Part Time Lover" fit that aesthetic: a song about the complicated emotional arithmetic of a relationship that exists only on the margins of someone's life, the specific pain of being wanted but not quite enough. Houston had long been a fertile ground for R&B talent, and H-Town carried that city's particular soulful directness into their work.
Al B. Sure!'s Continued Presence
Al B. Sure!, born Albert Joseph Brown III, had made his commercial breakthrough in 1988 and maintained a presence in the R&B world through the early 1990s despite a pop landscape that was shifting constantly beneath him. His pairing with H-Town on this release was a recognition that combining established names could amplify the commercial reach of both. His contribution, "I'm Still In Love With You," carried his signature smooth approach: the kind of romantic declaration that felt effortless in his delivery even when the emotional content was anything but. Together the two tracks offered radio programmers a double dose of R&B atmosphere, which may explain why the combined entry managed 23 million YouTube views accumulated across the subsequent streaming era.
A Snapshot of Mid-1990s R&B Radio
What the H-Town and Al B. Sure! chart entry ultimately represents is a snapshot of how R&B radio worked in the mid-1990s: collaborative, commercially minded, with labels finding creative ways to stretch the commercial life of their artists' material. The double-sided single was a throwback strategy that briefly found new utility in an era of crowded playlists and competitive radio formats. Both tracks carried the warmth and melodic directness that R&B audiences of the period valued, and together they gave listeners a reason to stay tuned. Press play and let the groove transport you back to a spring afternoon in 1994.
"Part Time Lover/I'm Still In Love With You" — H-Town/Al B. Sure!'s singular moment on the 1990s charts.
02 Song Meaning
Love on the Margins: What These Two Songs Are Really About
The "Part Time Lover" Side of the Story
H-Town's "Part Time Lover" operates in territory that R&B has always mapped with particular precision: the emotional landscape of a relationship that does not occupy its proper place. The person being addressed in the lyric is available sometimes but not always, present emotionally but not fully committed, wanted but withholding. That specific experience, of caring for someone who cannot or will not fully reciprocate, carries a recognizable pain that R&B songwriters have returned to across generations because it reflects something that a vast number of people have felt. The song does not simply describe the situation; it sits inside it, voicing the confusion and longing that come with being someone's secondary priority.
Al B. Sure!'s Declaration
The flip side of this emotional coin is "I'm Still In Love With You," which offers a different but related romantic preoccupation. Where "Part Time Lover" describes the frustration of incomplete reciprocity, a declaration of ongoing love persisting through whatever circumstances have intervened suggests the opposite struggle: feeling that remains even when conditions for its expression have changed. Together the two tracks on this double-sided single cover a significant portion of the emotional territory that defined mid-1990s R&B: the drama and difficulty of romantic feeling in a world that does not always make loving someone easy. The combined entry spent 16 weeks on the Hot 100 and peaked at number 57, numbers that reflect a genuine audience engagement with both emotional poles the release explored.
New Jack Swing's Emotional Grammar
H-Town emerged from the New Jack Swing tradition, which had a very specific relationship to romantic feeling. That genre combined physically assertive rhythms with lyrics that were often remarkably vulnerable, creating a sonic space where toughness and tenderness coexisted. The emotional grammar it developed, male vulnerability wrapped in confident production, gave a generation of young men permission to articulate feelings they might otherwise have left unexpressed. By 1994 New Jack was softening into something smoother, but H-Town maintained the essential tension between sonic confidence and lyrical exposure that had made the genre so effective.
The Audience That Found Them
The 23 million YouTube views that this double entry has accumulated in the streaming era reflect an audience that either remembers the original release with fondness or has discovered both tracks through the increasing availability of mid-1990s R&B on streaming platforms. The nostalgia for this period's R&B sound runs deep, partly because the vocal performances were exceptional and partly because the emotional territory the songs covered was so consistently relatable. Songs about the complications of romantic feeling do not age the way topical or trend-driven material does, because the feelings themselves are permanent features of human experience.
Why These Themes Endure
The combination of longing and persistence that these two tracks explore between them represents one of the oldest subjects in popular music. What the mid-1990s R&B tradition brought to that subject was a particular combination of melodic sophistication and emotional directness, a willingness to sit with the difficulty of feeling something complicated and give it a musical shape. That combination has kept these songs in rotation for listeners who find themselves in similar emotional situations decades after the original chart run concluded.
→ More from the 1990s File
View all 1990s hits →
Keep digging