Popular

"Popular" is a song by Nada Surf and the first single from their debut album High/Low. Each of the verses in '"Popular" presents, in spoken word format, sarcastic advice to teens. Initially offered in a calm, deadpan voice, the lyrics gradually build Kinison-style in teen angst and rage.

The song reached number 11 on the U.S. Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and propelled the album to number 63 on the Billboard 200. "Popular" was also a big hit in France, reaching the Top 10 with a total chart run of 15 consecutive weeks in the French Top 50. It was also used in France in a TV commercial for the radio station Fun Radio, which was then the most influential radio station among teenagers.

The whole song, except for the chorus, is made of parts the 1964 teen advice book Penny's Guide to Teen-Age Charm and Popularity, written by television actress Gloria Winters. The excerpts are spoken in a sarcastic tone by Matthew Caws. A rerecorded version from 2007 appears on the band's MySpace.

Music video

The music video for the song, directed by Jesse Peretz, was shot at the Bayonne High School, with administration approval, and showed football players and cheerleaders, wearing the uniforms of the school, as well as the three members of the band, Matthew as a teacher, Daniel as a security guard, and Ira as the football coach. The video was styled by Andrea Linnet, a former editor at Sassy magazine, who went on to found Lucky magazine.

The vice principal of the High School later launched a controversy, in mid-August 1996, by raising the issue that the last scene, which shows football players staring suggestively at each other in the showers, was homoerotic and thus offensive towards Bayonne High School, as it suggested some of its football players could be gay. According to Nada Surf, the shower scene was never intended to suggest homosexuality. Indeed, both the song's lyrics and the bulk of the video's imagery are predominantly — and blatantly — heterosexual. The video features passionate, heterosexual kissing scenes, for example. Significantly, the band members quickly took exception to this homophobic attack. During an MTV News report on the controversy, Nada Surf lambasted the vice principal's ignorance — calling the vice principal "small minded" for singling out "homoeroticism as more offensive than straight eroticism".

The cheerleader in the music video was portrayed by then 18 year old Sarah Sebestyen, a student at the time at Professional Children's School in Manhattan^[1].

Reference

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