Mumford And Sons' second album, Babel, was the best-selling rock album of 2012 and fourth best-selling record of the year overall, according to new figures released by Billboard. The British alternative folk quartet's sophomore effort sold 1.46 million copies since coming out last September, and was bested on the chart only by albums from Adele, Taylor Swift and One Direction.

• Babelwas also the only rock album at all to make the Top 10 for the year, which was dominated by pop and country acts.
• Mumford And Sons' debut disc, 2011's Sigh No More, made it to Number Six on that year's best sellers list with 1.42 million copies sold. It was also the only rock release to make the chart that year as well.
• In other sales news, 2012 was a record year for individual digital sales of songs, with Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know" topping the list as 2012's best selling digital track. It sold 6.8 million copies.
• Coming in third was Fun.'s "We Are Young," which moved 5.95 million digital copies. Although the group has been around for several years, we asked band member Andrew Dost why he thinks their music is clicking now with listeners: "I think first of all, we're finally sort of learning to write the songs that we're sort of built to write. We're sort of finding our chemistry with the three of us. A lot of it is due to our label and due to the people that we've been working with, and our manager. We've got kind of the right team and the right combination of people in place that work very hard for us. It was just kind of the right time with all these different elements coming together."
• Fun. also had a second tune in the digital Top 10, selling 3.84 million copies of the title track from their second album, Some Nights, to land at Number Seven.

WHAT DO YOU THINK??

• Did you get any CDs/albums as a holiday gift?
• How many physical albums did you purchase in 2012? How many digital albums or tracks?
• Do you find it alarming that there is only one rock album -- and a softer one at that -- among the 10 best-selling discs of 2012?

Andrew Dost Of Fun. On The Band's Success

Read more at Rolling Stone and Billboard