Sometimes you achieve success by breaking all the rules about how to achieve success.

The Ravers rose to life as a new wave band in Boulder, Colorado in 1976. Finding the town somewhat on the sleepy side, the guys packed up and hauled gear across the country to the wild nights and lights of New York City. Along with locating all the action they could handle, they also discovered another group with the same name, forcing them to rebrand the band as The Nails.

With their new name and a few new members, The Nails recorded an EP in 1981 which caught the ear of an artist scout for RCA Records. In particular, he couldn’t let go of an unusual song titled “88 Lines About 44 Women.” He signed the band and into the studio they hied.

For their debut album in 1984, the group rerecorded the ear-catching song and, despite having five members at the time, the track still sounds like it was made by one guy in his basement studio. Which is essentially how it sounded the first time, too.

The eccentricities of “88 Lines About 44 Women” are manifold: it’s basically a poem set to music, spoken rather than sung, with no chorus to speak of, and in place of the chorus is a hummed melody which sounds suspiciously like “A Summer Song” by Chad & Jeremy (although I see this mentioned nowhere else), and to top it all off, it’s five minutes long.

None of these characteristics is how you’re supposed to go about scoring a hit single! And yet….

Well, technically it wasn’t exactly a hit single. When released in 1984, “88 Lines About 44 Women” only climbed to #46 on the US Dance Chart — not the highest of showings but a peak for the band, and the track subsequently appeared on an award-winning Mazda commercial and a host of 80s compilations, cementing the song as an underground classic.

Are you a Zilla or a Gina? I’m Janet.