Mumford and Sons, Babel - album artwork analysis

1. Having all the other people
blurred with the band in
focus draws the attention
immediately to them and
creates a binary opposition
where they are given
prevalence.
Typography is the same as all their album covers
and is associated with the band. This gives the
covers more of a professional appearance and
makes it easily recognisable to fans.
Dyer’s paradox of being
simultaneously present and absent
can be applied here as there is use of
extra-diegetitic gaze which breaks
the 4th wall causing them to appear
present to the viewers. However, this
is not the case for all the members as
one is looking away. This absence
means the band as a whole do not
appear present creating an
incoherence.
The mise-en-scene
represents the music genre,
for example, the urban
vintage fashion connotes
the indie folk genre of
music allowing people to
gain an insight to their meta
narrative prior to listening
to the album.
The album artwork reflects the
meaning of the song they chose to
name the album after – Babel. A
main interpretation of the song is
that they’re leaving society behind
as it crumbles down. This is
reflected by them being in focus,
progressing, while everyone else is
blurred.
The location of the image signifies
the indie folk genre which is
commonly associated with a
village feel.
There is use of maritime flags to spell
out ‘TOUR’. The band use cryptic
codes to give messages to their loyal
fan base often.