Good Callback: Zumpano
Posted by: steve | From: May 18, 2004
Sub Pop, the purveyors of all things grunge, were lambasted pretty heavily in 1995, for their percieved overnight and very awkward shift in music from said grunge rock to a much more diversified and pop based lineup. This shift was not so overnight as they had been putting out records by House of Pain , Stereolab, and Ween all along. It all came to a head in 1995 though with the release of full lengths from Velocity Girl, Combustible Edison, and Zumpano. It did seem like Sub Pop was trying very hard to do anything that wasn't grunge. I mean, Combustible Edison!?!? My teenage self was eating it up, thinking "All this stuff is weird. Weird stuff is cool." Sub Pop went some tough financial years that coincided with those musical focus shift and didn't fully recover till the turn of the millenium.
Zumpano is one of the most forgotten (Eric Matthews, anyone?) of any Sub Pop band as their entire career spanned two albums in only a year and a half. Zumpano, from Vancouver BC, was a power pop band heavily influenced by 60s pop. They wore these somewhat controversial influences (soft rock, jangle pop, the Zombies, Jimmy Webb) on their sleeves but were not derivitive. They had a hand on making these influences much more acceptable and even very popular in the years after they broke up. Zumpano songs are smart and catchy and complex pop with many parts and solid emotional context. Their debut CD Look What The Rookie Did was highly influential on me in opening up my eyes to pop music of the past and pop not having to be vapid verse/chorus/verse drivel and only sugary positive music. They are more well known for what their lead singer and songwriter, Carl Newman, went onto do as he is now the primary songwriter in The New Pornographers, and while I like The New Pornographers I think Newman's best work came in Zumpano, and it seems weird that this little awkward oft forgotten band would be The Greatest Band Of All Time but today they truly are.
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