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The band surfed a wave of banjo-forward pop across the festivals and adult-contemporary radio stations that define American taste.
Though their rapid rise felt surprising at the time, its vectors are obvious in hindsight.
And unlike their forebears emphasis on homespun intimacy, the Mumfords aimed their accordions at the universe.
Their Springsteen-in-suspenders shtick landed them Lollapalooza crowds and weepy TV syncs.
Their 2009 debutSigh No Morewould go on to sell more than 4 million copies.
Mumford disciples in suspenders, porkpie hats, and brown wingtip boots flooded urban centers worldwide.
The chorus of jeers did not help Mumford & Sons confidence.
The band was struggling under the caricature image theyd cultivated.
In retrospect, the video feels a little sad.
Mumford & Sons had become a punch line even to themselves.
The video accurately characterized the state of play: the bands shtick had become radioactive.
Fuck the banjo, Mumfords banjo player Winston Marshall toldDIY Magin 2015.
These days, neo-folk is diminished at the mainstream level.
From a contemporary vantage, its easy to dismiss the whole scene as a brief, inconsequential 00s hangover.
But in retrospect theres something fascinating about the fact that it happened at all.
New stars who play the banjo dont appear every day.
Despite the jokes, theres something about it that feels important in understanding what came after.
Mumford & Sons took pops nostalgia impulse to new heights of abstraction, synthesis, and commercialism.
But Mumford short-circuited that paradigm.
That distance from context differentiates the band from obsessive revivalists like Jack White.
These loose gestures allowed them to appeal to an incredibly wide swath of people.
Of course, this exchange rendered them uncool, which caused the jokes, and in turn the banjo-smashing.
Theres one space, though, where the Mumford sound still thrives: ads.
Typically, this music is paired with products intended for families, likeminivansordata plans.
This marketing phenomenon took off at the end of the 00s, around the same time as Mumford.
