Mumford & Sons New Album : Mumfordmania! Arrives with Babel

Folk rock is not British creation but it is huge in Great Britain, had a strong folk scene there for decades in fact, where for example folk legend Bob Dylan had gained cultic following there in the years that he became a worldwide star and U.S. super-rocker.

And maybe one could never think that England and folk rock could go together except that popular 70’s/80’s band America is a mixed English-American folk rock band.

And we all know that folk rock was once known to have dissipated and melted down except that Tracy Chapman had tried to resuscitate it in the 90’s.

And these days, folk rock is finally making a huge comeback and guess who’s spearheading it? It’s none other than Mumford & Sons, the indie folk rockers from England who had stormed the music scene in America in the past couple of years with their phenomenal eponymous outing Sigh No More.

Together with another upstart indie folk rock band from Seattle Fleet Foxes, Mumford & Sons steadily introduced (or-re-introduced to say more correctly) into the psyche of American listeners the  beauty and calmness of string instruments such as banjo and the stinging affectivity of strumming guitars and tom-toms.

And to prove how big Mumford & Sons had become, and indie folk for that matter, the band’s latest album Babel debuted at #1 and instantly made record sales, the biggest so far for this year, with 340,000 debut sales, half-a-million copies in the week ending September 30.

It’s an outstanding feat considering that Babel sold more copies than the next 7 albums placing in Billboard Top 200 Albums Chart, a list that includes big names such as Green Day and No Doubt.

And Paul Grein of Chart Watch says Mumfordmania! Alluding to another British band before that had similarly surprised the charts with spurting debut sales for album releases.

Let us see how Babel would perform in terms of sales in the next few weeks and perhaps let us read some reviews and preview its song roster. We’d be able to prove by that time if indeed, Mumfordmania! has finally ariive in today’s music scene.