AEMMP Records, 2007. www.bumpusweb.com

Columbia connection: Both Rob Polachek and Brent Pulse, the band’s horn players, attended Columbia in the late '90s and early '00s. The CD is on the college’s label, AEMMP Records.

The Sound: Pop

The Word: When Jim DeRogatis (the hard-to-please, prone-to-snarkiness pop music critic for the Chicago Sun-Times) likes your band, chances are you’re worth listening to. In 2001, DeRogatis named Bumpus’s Stereoscope one of the top 10 local albums. Since then, Bumpus has enjoyed an impressive amount of success, opening for brilliant hip-hop acts like Jurassic 5 and The Roots. All the People is the 11-year-old band’s fourth album. Bumpus’s easy sound conjures up Ben Harper, Jamiroquai and everything in between.

—Brent Steven White