Zoot Suit Riot met with largely mixed reactions from mainstream critics. Of the positive reviews, The Los Angeles Times, comparing albums by the most popular groups of the swing revival, chose the Daddies as having "the most effective music for the dance fad of the moment", citing the band's "suggestive lyrics and occasionally interesting musical textures" as their most distinguishing quality. The New York Times described the Daddies as "one of the few neo-swing bands that can win over a skeptic with their rhythm section", noting Perry's lyricism as having "an inventiveness missing from most of the other swing bands' lyrics". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic, however, gave the album a rating of 2.5 out of 5 stars, noting that while the Daddies pulled off "reasonably infectious" tunes, the modernist lyrics had lent Zoot Suit Riot a "condescending Gen-X attitude, as well as a lack of understanding about what made swing fun", writing the album off as a "smirking hipster joke, only without any humor and very little music". The jazz critic Scott Yanow, in his 2000 book Swing!, labeled the Daddies as the perfect "whipping boy for the Retro Swing movement", noting, "The Daddies sound as if they are a punk rock band who has chosen to masquerade as swing...the rhythm section has difficulty swinging, the vocals are often profane...the music, although excitable in spots, usually comes dangerously close to camp." Perry's reflection on the album has been decidedly ambivalent, which he has described in interviews as being a "blessing as well as a curse", noting that while Zoot Suit Riot had exposed the Daddies' music to a wider audience and provided them with the financial stability to continue as a band, the success of the album continues to paint a one-dimensional image of the Daddies as an "orthodox swing band" over the prominently eclectic ska, punk and rock influences which largely feature in their music. 20th anniversary edition In mid-2014, Perry revealed that he had re-obtained the rights to Zoot Suit Riot from Jive Records and planned to release a remixed version of the album. In interviews, Perry lamented the fact that the production of the album had been rushed and that only first takes had been used, noting that the band could have done "2 or 3 more" takes of the songs "if we had known the future back in 1996". He stated elsewhere, "I guess my