pushed ‘Zoot Suit Riot’ as single

As swing music steadily gained commercial momentum throughout 1997, sales of Zoot Suit Riot increased dramatically; by December, Mojo was moving 12,000 units per week. In January 1998, the label informed the Daddies of their decision to push the album’s title track as a major single and distribute it among mainstream radio stations. The Daddies, who were beginning work on their next studio album, ardently protested this move, believing that a swing song would never receive airplay and were concerned that the band would end up having to recoup the marketing costs. Mojo nevertheless persisted, and much to the band’s surprise, “Zoot Suit Riot” soon found regular rotation on stations such as Los Angeles’ influential KROQ-FM , helping establish swing music in the mainstream and leading to its eventual commercial breakthrough, with the Daddies at the forefront. By mid-1998, the Daddies had emerged as one of the most successful bands of the swing revival: after climbing to number one on Billboard’ s Top Heatseekers , Zoot Suit Riot became the first album of the swing revival to crack the Top 40 on the Billboard 200 , peaking at number 17 and spending an ultimate total of 53 weeks on the charts. In June 1998, the album had sold 500,000 copies in the United States, going on to surpass sales of 1.4 million by August.