Whentherain

When The Rain Begins To Fall

Pia Zadora and Jermaine Jackson teamed up, thanks to their mutual
friend, boxing- and concertpromotor Don King. Back in 1984, Don
organized the Jacksons' Victory-tour. At that moment Pia had already
recorded the song for the soundtrack of her upcoming movie "Voyage
Of The Rock Aliens." Don played the song for Jermaine, who liked it
very much. So the song was re-recorded with Jermaine.

The videoclip of the song, with kind of a West Side Story theme, a
Romeo and Juliette in the future if you want, was directed by Bob
Giraldi (who also directed Michael Jackson's "Beat It") and added in
its entirity to the "Voyage..." movie.

By the time the song was released, pop duets were really 'hip-to-do' in
Europe. Remember Tina Turner & David Bowie ("Tonight"), Julio
Iglesias & Diana Ross ("Endless Love"), Phil Collins & Philip Bailey ("Easy Lover")?

If you combine the Jackson fame and the Riklis money, you get a match that opens more than just a few doors. Jack White, one of Germany's most successfull producers of that time who also wrote the song, did the production.The promotion machine did its work and shortly after the release, "When The Rain Begins To Fall" went straight to n°1 in most European charts.

So why didn't this work in the Anglo-Saxon world? Simple. In the rest of the world, Pia Zadora wasn't a household name yet. She didn't carry that stigma of 'the-starlet-with-the-bought-carreer'. In the US and the UK though, she still had this very bad image against her. When the song was finally released, Pia was already busy with her next album 'Pia & Phil' and I guess nobody felt much for promoting 'Pia the pop-singer' with this future release in mind.

Also, Michael Jackson's "Thriller" was released a year earlier and the Jacksons' Victory Tour was still not coming to Europe. So the fans would jump onto anything that carried the Jackson-name; even LaToyah sold some records at that time.

In the UK & US, "When the rain..." did next to nothing and dissappeared into oblivian, whereas for the rest of the Old Continent, "When The Rain Begins To Fall" is still a very popular 80's classic!

back to