Zoot Suit Riot (album)
| Zoot Suit Riot: The Swingin' Hits of the Cherry Poppin' Daddies | ||||
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| Compilation album by Cherry Poppin' Daddies | ||||
| Released | March 18, 1997 July 1, 1997 (Mojo re-issue) January 13, 2017 (20th anniversary re-issue) |
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| Recorded | 1989–1997 at Gung Ho Studios in Eugene, Oregon | |||
| Genre | Swing | |||
| Length | 51:28 | |||
| Label | Space Age Bachelor Pad Records Mojo Records |
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| Producer |
Steve Perry Cherry Poppin' Daddies |
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| Cherry Poppin' Daddies chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Zoot Suit Riot | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |    |
| Robert Christgau |  |
Zoot Suit Riot: The Swingin' Hits of the Cherry Poppin' Daddies is a compilation album and fourth album overall by American ska-swing band the Cherry Poppin' Daddies, released on March 18, 1997 on Space Age Bachelor Pad Records. The album is a collection of all of the swing-styled songs culled from the Daddies' first three ska punk-oriented albums, plus four bonus tracks recorded exclusively for this release.
After a successful independent release in early 1997, Zoot Suit Riot was re-issued and nationally distributed by major label subsidiary Mojo Records following the Daddies' subsequent signing to the label. By early 1998, regular radio airplay of the album's eponymous single helped propel Zoot Suit Riot to the top of Billboard's Top Heatseekers, eventually becoming the first "new swing" album to enter the Billboard Top 40 and serving as the catalyst for the short-lived swing revival of the late 1990s. While both the Daddies' and the swing revival's mainstream popularity would wane by the end of 1998, at its peak, Zoot Suit Riot reached number 17 on the Billboard 200, selling over two million copies in the United States and achieving gold record sales in several other countries.
By 1997, the Cherry Poppin' Daddies had eked out a living as a full-time independent band, having released three regionally successful studio albums and carving out a successful touring niche within the American third wave ska scene at a time when the genre was just beginning to generate mainstream commercial interest on the heels of bands such as No Doubt and Sublime.
Following the unexpected popular success of the 1996 film Swingers and its featured band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, public attention started turning towards the formerly underground swing revival movement. Though the Daddies had never been an active presence within the scene, the band soon began regularly attracting a sizable and receptive audience for their swing material, though eventually came to realize they lacked an album which fully represented this side of their music, and more so lacked the finances to record a new one. Singer-songwriter Steve Perry explained how the concept of a compilation came to be in an interview for The Daily of the University of Washington:
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