Album Sweep: July 6, 2013 - Part One...

It's time to kick off this week's "album sweep" of the new records making their way on to the Top 200 Albums sales chart in Billboard magazine. As usual, I've included links to buy anything if possible, but if you can, please stop by an independent record store and show some love...

The top-selling album of the week is by new father Kanye West, whose sixth solo studio album Yeezus sold over three hundred thousand copies. It's his sixth #1 album (including his collaboration set with Jay-Z). His only one to miss was his debut The College Dropout (which still topped out at #2)...

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Coming in at right under 300K sold is the album at #2, Born Sinner by J. Cole. It's his second full-length; his debut, Cole World: Sideline Story, sold less its first week but went to #1 in 2011...(NSFW)

The third album to sell over a hundred thousand copies this week is rapper Mac Miller, who lands at #3 with his sophomore effort Watching Movies With The Lights Turned Off. His debut, Blue Slide Park, also topped the chart in 2011 like Cole's...(NSFW)

Child of Destiny Kelly Rowland arrives at #4 with her fourth album Talk A Good Game. Three of them including this made the top-10, with 2011's Here I Am going to #3 in 2011..

Icelandic experimental-rock group Sigur Ros are back at #14 with Kveikur. Six of their albums went to #1 in their home country, while in America its their fourth to make the top-40. Their last set Valtari so far has been their highest reaching #7 last year...

What's a week without some metalcore, and Falling in Reverse from Las Vegas doesn't disappoint. They enter the chart at #17 with their second record, Fashionably Late. It bests their debut The Drug In Me is You by 2 notches...(NSFW)

This season's edition of The Voice, or the meeting of the Blake Shelton fan club, ended a week ago, and all three of the finalists see their "collections" of show performances reach the top half of the albums chart. First at #19 is the winner, vapid 16-year-old Danielle Bradbery's Complete Season 4 Collection.

Australian indie-electronica duo Empire Of The Sun leap in at #20 with their second album Ice On The Dune. It's a great improvement over their first which didn't even make the 200..

Returning after a three-year break is sibling indie-sunshine-rockers Hanson, as their Anthem comes in at #22. It's their eighth album to make the top-40 (including a live and compilation set); their breakthrough Middle Of Nowhere went to #2 in 1997...

Dutch trance master Tiesto enters at #41 with Club Life Vol 3: Stockholm....

The (unjustly) second-place finisher on The Voice was hipster-chick Michelle Chamuel, and her The Voice: The Complete Season 4 Collection arrives at #57. In 2010, she came "out" in AfterEllen...

The last of the Voice collections, this time from the Swon Brothers, enters the chart at #65....

That's it for the first half of the new crop....out of this dozen the three I'd choose first are the Empire Of The Sun, Sigur Ros, and Hanson albums.

I'll return tomorrow with the rest of the bunch, including new stuff from a Denver act named for their area code, a country-rap hyrbid, and a band who loves their Rudyard Kipling.