From the BSNYC Culture Desk: Music, Bikes, and Marketing

As a cyclist, it's hard not to feel marginalized sometimes--especially when a giant SUV is running you off the road because its 5'3" driver can't see your head over the top of the passenger door. And when you then see an ad that uses bicycles to sell that very same SUV, chances are you then go from feeling marginalized to feeling just plain insulted. Such is the plight of the cyclist; we're simultaneously marginal and marketable.

Of course, not all marketing ploys involving cycling are quite so contradictory and offensive. Some are simply harmless attempts to appear in step with a current style or trend. Like this video from the band Nada Surf, which was forwarded to me by a reader.

Nada Surf are generally considered an "indie band," which is an apt moniker for a group whose first album was produced by Rik Ocasek of the Cars, released by Elektra Records, and contained the hit single "Popular." So as an idie band, it makes sense that they'd want to do a video which features a messenger on a fixed-gear (played by a professional actor), since many members of their target audience are probably fans of urban fixed-gear riding, and the associated imagery is in line with their own aesthetic. But hey, at least the guy knows how to ride a bike, and at least he's not being made to look like a total idiot, unlike cyclists in most movies. And at least the video's original, right?

Wrong. Actually, this was already done last year by Robin Thicke*, R&B singer and son of Alan Thicke (the Canadian star of "Growing Pains" and host of the unfortunately-titled and extremely short-lived talk show, "Thicke of the Night"). Except unlike the Nada Surf video, the bike is a mountain bike, and Robin Thicke himself is riding it. (At least some of the time.)

*OK, it was actually done in 2002. Thanks for the correction.

Come on, Nada Surf should have realized this video had been done already. A reader forwarded this to me ages ago. Even bikecommuters.com featured it!

Perhaps that's why another "indie" musician, Brooklyn-dwelling Sufjan Stevens (pictured below on what appears to be a fixed-gear bicycle with half a bowling ball on his head) has taken an entirely different tack.

Instead of clamoring for his slice of the bike trend-marketing pie, he's been presenting a "symphonic and cinematic exploration" of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. (For all you out-of-towners, the BQE is strictly cars only.)

Perhaps Nada Surf's next video will feature them stuck in traffic by the Metropolitan Avenue exit, watching the hip and the Hassidim walking to and fro on the overpass.