Album · Mumford & Sons
Babel by Mumford & Sons
Babel is an album by Mumford & Sons, released in 2012. 6 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 96 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “I Will Wait”, on 57 lists and voted number one three times.
Babel, Mumford & Sons' second album, came out on Island on 21 September 2012, and it doubles down on everything that made the London band's debut a hit: stomping kick drums, furiously strummed acoustics, Winston Marshall's banjo firing like a Gatling gun and Marcus Mumford hollering at full stretch. Markus Dravs produced again, as he had on Sigh No More, with Ben Lovett's keyboards and Ted Dwane's bass swelling underneath.
"I Will Wait" is the big one, a galloping singalong, with "Lover of the Light", "Hopeless Wanderer" and the title track in its wake. It went straight to number one in both Britain and America, moving 600,000 copies in its opening American week and more than 159,000 in its opening British one, which made it the fastest-selling album of the year in Britain, and it won Album of the Year at the Grammys. The following summer they headlined Glastonbury.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Babel on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | I Will Wait | 57 | #1 | 3 | 2012–2026 | |
| 2 | Lover of the Light | 17 | #9 | – | 2012–2013 | |
| 3 | Babel | 14 | #19 | – | 2012–2022 | |
| 4 | Hopeless Wanderer | 4 | #38 | – | 2013–2019 | |
| 5 | Below My Feet | 3 | #51 | – | 2012 | |
| 6 | Whispers In The Dark | 1 | #629 | – | 2013 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.