Nada Surf - Popular

My mom says I'm a catch. I'm popular.

Album: High/Low [debut album]
Recorded: Manhattan, New York
Genre: Rock, Alternative Rock
Album Release: June 18th 1996
Single Release: May 1996 [3rd single - not available in US]
Length: 3:40
Producer: Ric Ocasek
Vocalist: Matthew Caws [age 29]
Label: Elektra Records

Music Video


Live on 2 Meter Sessions in 1997

Charts, Streams & Sales

France (single): #10
Iceland (single): #1
USA (albums): #63
Spotify: 35,000,000 +
YouTube Music: 20,000,000 +

Credits & Gear

Bass, drums, guitar

Details

• Many people have compared Nada Surf to Weezer and 'Popular' was produced by Ric Ocasek who also produced Weezer's debut album. Ocasek is well-known as the frontman of the new wave band The Cars.
  
• The name Nada Surf means surfing on nothing. Nada was nineties slang for nothing. The name refers to listening to music and going off somewhere in your head, floating around in your imagination, surfing on nothing. 
• The album was recorded in only three weeks.
  
• As a trio [bass, drums, guitar], Nada Surf have to be economical about their music. They simply don't have enough instruments to fill every space which can make their songs sound sparse and minimal. When done right, such an approach can give the instruments room to breathe and allow the listener to focus on the lead but it can be a tricky needle to thread.
  
  When two members of your three-piece are the rhythm section it puts pressure on the frontman to be engaging throughout. Having two thirds of a good song isn't enough if you want to make a hit record. When you're the only person in the spotlight everyone notices when you make a mistake. The simple solution is to never make a mistake.
  
  Taking on such pressure requires a lot of confidence so I have to give credit to singer Michael Caws for doing just that. He is the privately educated son of two prominent academics and when he saw the opportunity to front his own band he stood up and took it. Nada Surf have stayed together ever since and have released 10 albums to date. 
• The band didn't really come into their own until they released the album 'Let Go' in 2003.
  
  
• 'Popular' is a comedic song about the prototypical popular girl in an American high school. The verses are sung as if they're from a 'How to Be Popular' guidebook and in the video are delivered by a teacher addressing eagerly listening cheerleaders. The choruses are from a male point of view as they have a lyric that says "I'm a quarterback." For many Americans, if you went to high school in the nineties you lived out some version of the life portrayed in the video.
  
  The song definetly has a sinister side. It doesn't genuinely want the listener to follow the instructions and be popular. It's more that, by laying everything out in a step by step manner, it exposes the vapid nature of chasing popularity and wanting to be one of the cool kids. It shows the popular girl as a liar and a cheat who has her way with everyone and feels nothing. Her time would've been better spent studying so she could get good grades and have a career.
  
  In the third verse the singer calls his advice 'The Teenage Guide to Popularity'. If a girl really followed such rules she would've been with every guy in school by the end of the first term and picked up enough bacteria to open a laboratory.
  
  
• The verses feature lines taken from 'Penny's Guide To Teenage Charm And Popularity'. A book written in 1964 to teach young girls how to behave. Matthew Caws embellished certain lines and I'm pretty sure the advice about having relationships with one month time limits isn't from the book. In the tweet below Caws claims the book is from 1956 but the information I can find dates it at 1964. For those who want to improve their behaviours the title can be purchased here.
  
  
  
  
• "I was listening to a lot of Sonic Youth and I was playing around with those chords at the beginning of the song trying to cop a little bit of their chord style, which I’m sure I didn’t do successfully," "So I was playing around with a 4-track and I had this little hook and I thought I would write a chorus from the standpoint of somebody who really believed everything in this book and someone who approached life like that in a very competitive way." [Matthew Caws talking to Motif Magazine]
  
  
• There is a cover version by Pom Pom Squad which features Matthew Caws on guitar.
• The single cover [below] features trophies in a box as if they're about to be thrown out. This framing continues the 'high school popularity as something best avoided' theme started in the music video.
  
  

Artwork