Earlier this year, Pom Pom Squad‘s Mia Berrin tweeted her admiration for Nada Surf’s ‘Popular’, writing: “I’m gonna recreate the video for popular by Nada Surf but I’m gonna play every character.” Berrin has now followed through on her promise, enlisting Nada Surf’s own Matthew Caws for a cover of the 1996 track and entirely remaking its music video. The clip, directed by Aysia Marotta, was filmed at the same high school as the original video. Check it out below.
“Working with Nada Surf was such a dream,” Berrin said in a statement. “They’re such an incredible group of individuals and were so kind to everyone in PPS during our time out on tour together. It’s hard not to be inspired by their career, so to intersect with their legacy even a little bit is really special.”
“I think the video is amazing! I love how it feels like a shot-for-shot recreation at the start but quickly takes on its own totally new character,” Caws added. “The original was shot in 1996, looking back at previous decades, while this one feels set in the present day, looking inwards and towards the future… another really cool aspect of the video is that the cheerleader character feels more and more sincere and human as the story develops. By the end, she’s much more than a player in a high school creation, she’s a person in the world and the singer of the song. To me there’s a “closed film” sense about Pom Pom Squad. Meaning that even if you could trace influences in their music, it feels as if they’ve invented it all themselves. They are their own world. That’s a trait I’ve felt in all my favorite bands: they’ve created their own reality.”
Pom Pom Squad released their debut album, Death of a Cheerleader, earlier this year. Check out where it landed on our 50 Best Albums of 2021 list, and read our Artist Spotlight interview with Pom Pom Squad.
