Nada Surf – Popular
1996 · Directed by Jesse Peretz
117K Likes
Best comments
1.“I'm the most popular person in my mother's basement.”
More comments
- 2.“Nada Surf is what you get when you combine Weezer and a debilitating alcohol problem.”
- 3.“I remember downloading this video on Napster in 2000 with my 56k connection... took about 6 months.”
The story
The talking parts of Popular aren't even Nada Surf's words. Matthew Caws lifted them from Penny's Guide to Teen-Age Charm and Popularity, a 1964 teen advice book by actress Gloria Winters, and reads them in the flattest, most sarcastic voice he can find. Then the guitars kick the door in. Ric Ocasek produced it at Electric Lady Studios in New York, and it came out in May 1996 as the band's debut single.
Jesse Peretz shot the video at Bayonne High School, with the administration's blessing. The band plays the staff: Caws is the teacher, Daniel Lorca the security guard, Ira Elliot the football coach. A cheerleader takes the teacher's popularity advice a little too literally and dates two football players behind their backs. She was played by Sarah Sebestyen, then 18 and a student at Manhattan's Professional Children's School.
It reached number 11 on Billboard's modern rock chart, spent two weeks at number one in Iceland and went gold in France. It stayed their biggest hit, which is how a 2016 anniversary piece ended up calling them a one-hit wonder. In 2021 the band Pom Pom Squad covered it with Caws on backing vocals and remade the video at the same school. Twenty-five years later, the hallway still needed the warning.
