"Popular" is a song by Nada Surf and the first single from their debut albumHigh/Low. Each of the verses in '"Popular" presents, in spoken word format, sarcastic advice to teens. The song reached number 11 on the US BillboardModern Rock Tracks chart and propelled the album to number 63 on the Billboard 200. "Popular" was also a big hit in Iceland, topping the country's chart for two weeks, and in France, where it reached number 10 and received a Gold certification for sales of over 250,000. Additionally, the song reached the top 40 in New Zealand, Sweden, and the Wallonia region of Belgium.
Background and release
The whole song, except for the chorus, are parts made up from the 1964 teen advice book Penny's Guide to Teen-Age Charm and Popularity, written by television actressGloria Winters. The excerpts are spoken in a sarcastic tone by Matthew Caws. A rerecorded version from 2007 appears on the band's MySpace. "Popular" proved to be Nada Surf's only sizable hit. Caws explained, "After the attention from 'Popular' died down, people seemed to get the impression that we'd somehow fallen from grace." Due to the song's commercial success, Nada Surf has been branded by some as a one-hit wonder; Caws reflected on this, "There are things in the plus column and things in the minus column about having one hit. But in the end it balances out." Nada Surf continue to perform the song live, despite the stylistic difference from the band's later material. Caws commented, "We've tried playing 'Popular' at concerts now. If we don't play it, someone is grumpy. If we do play it, someone else is grumpy. We can't win."
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 Linett, a former editor at Sassy magazine, who went on to be the founding creative director of Lucky magazine. The plot consisted of an attractive female cheerleader, taking the teacher's lesson on popularity literally: by two-timing two football players behind their backs, under the notion that she deserves "every boy in the whole world" by following that teacher's "Teenage guide to popularity." Only in the video's ironic conclusion is it revealed that the two players are actually friends and have both been with the cheerleader. 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.
