YouTube
I know reading YouTube comments isn't generally wise, but there's a comment on the Now 3 TV commercial where somebody suggests that it must be the gayest Now album ever, and as the advert flashes through video clips of 'Smalltown Boy', 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go' and this, you can kind of see what they mean. If only it had been 'Relax' instead of 'Two Tribes' we'd have had a full set. That said, 'It's Raining Men' obviously doesn't have quite the same relationship with gay culture as those other songs, being fronted by a female duo; a pair of former Sylvester backing singers known as Two Tons Of Fun until this single. The song was co-written by Paul Shafer, later better-known as the bandleader on David Letterman's TV show and possibly not a regular at Studio 54. Indeed I've seen at least one person on a web forum criticise this as an outsider's version of gay culture.
To give credit where it's due, though, it's a strong pop record, though as previous and subsequent versions of the song have proved, it's quite dependent on the vocals and personality of the Weather Girls themselves. They have good voices but they also get credit for entering into the spirit of things, embracing the silliness and innuendo with gusto. They really make this the camp classic it is, even at the price of encouraging a lot of inferior cover versions. Amazingly, this never even went Top 40 in America.
Available on: 100 Hits Of The '80s
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