Because we love ‘em all. Here’s your 90’s Video of the Day:
Nada Surf - Popular
This teenage guide to popularity actually has quite a few rules, but here we go as Nada Surf takes the awkwardness of high school and somehow twists the knife!
The sardonic tone of the mostly spoken word track gives you all the high school creepy crawlies but could you imagine it being actual published advice? Because, it is. There’s a 1964 book called Penny’s Guide to Teen-Age Charm and Popularity written by Gloria Winters (who yes, gets a writing credit on the song). Hopefully the credit took the sting out of them dragging her the whole time.
The video was shot at Bayonne High School and the school amazingly approved it, so it does include the real school's athletic uniforms, football players, and cheerleader students. The main cheerleader though, was actress Sarah Sebestyen or else Monday morning would have been super weird. Director Andrea Linett put the three members of Nada Surf in the video as well serving as respectively, a teacher, security guard and football coach.
Nada Surf has a familiar story with a lot of one hit wonder bands and specifically some of our 90’s bands; the majority of their output sounds nothing like this. To this day, their material differs so greatly the band often cites they are in a “can’t win” situation when deciding whether or not to play it live.
Hit me up with 90’s Videos you wanna see featured at abby@wxdx.com