Album Sweep: May 31, 2014 - Part One...

I'm ready to kick off the first half of this week's "album sweep", sampling the records making their debut on the official Top 200 Albums sales chart in Billboard magazine. As usual, I've included links to buy the newbies as well as some of the artists' other work, but if you can, stop on by an independent record store. It'll do your soul some good...

There were a race for the top spot this week, and the winner by about 7,000 copies is Turn Blue, the eighth album and third big-time release for the indie-rock duo the Black Keys. It's their first to hit the top of the chart...

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The other contender for the crown this week was the second posthumous album from Michael Jackson, Xscape, which ends up at #2 with 157,000 sold. His first, Michael, came in at #3 in 2010...

Country crossover trio Rascal Flatts enter at #5 with Rewind, their ninth studio album. All but one of those has made the top of the country albums chart, as well as the top 10 of this chart. The boys have had four consecutive #1 albums here, the last being 2009's Unstoppable...

Country legend Dolly Parton unbelieveably scores for first top-10 solo album as her 42nd album, Blue Smoke, comes in at #6. Besides her Trio collaboration album with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, which went to #6 in 1987, her previous solo high was 9 to 5 and Odd Jobs that peaked at #11 in 1980. All told she now has ten albums that made the top-40 here...

Modern rock queen Tori Amos returns at #7 with her fourteenth studio album Unrepentant Geraldines. It's her eighth effort to make the top-10; in 1996 she made it almost to the top at #2 with Boys For Pele...

The sixth debut in the top-10 at #10 belongs to Christian pop singer Michael W. Smith with Sovereign. He's been on the big chart since 1990 but this is his first in the top eschelon...

Canadian electropop duo Chromeo land at #11 with their fourth album and second to chart in the US, White Women...

Mushroomhead, an industrial metal act from Cleveland, place their highest rank with The Righteous & The Butterfly at #20...

Heavy metal supergroup Down, led by former Pantera vocalist Phil Anselmo, is back at #23 with Down IV: Part II, a six-song EP. Part 1 also called The Purple EP, went to #35 in 2012. This new one goes higher on the chart than they've ever been....


Little Dragon,a trip-hop group from Sweden, arrives at #24 with their fourth full-length album Nabuma Rubberband. It's their first time in the top-40...

Experimental rock group Swans have been around since the early 80s, and their latest album, To Be Kind, comes in at #37, their first to make the top 40...

Newcomers Sylvan Esso take their self-titled debut album to #39....

The "official" album supplementing the 2014 FIFA World Cup game, One Love One Rhythm, kicks in at #45. It has music from Pitbull, Shakira, Magic!, and more...

California rapper Sudan Williams, who records under the moniker Iamsu!, debuts at #50 with his first studio album Sincerely Yours...

That's it for the first half of the bunch...out of these fourteen the three I would recommend first are the Chromeo, Black Keys, and Tori Amos sets...

I'll be back tomorrow with part two...