Album Sweep: November 24, 2012 - Part One...

Hey gang, time to kick off this week's "album sweep" where I sample the new records making their way on to the Top 200 Albums chart in Billboard magazine. As usual I'll include links to by anything you like if available online.

The top-selling album for the third week is Taylor Swift's Red, which is also the only set to sell over 100,000 copies, in fact almost reaching 200K.

The top debut at #2, almost reaching that 100K number, is the 44th set in the Now That's What I Call Music! series. Now 44 has twenty tracks, with two #1 pop hits in the mix (Maroon 5's "One More Night" and Flo Rida's "Whistle"), as well as six more that made the top-10 on Billboard's Hot 100...

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


R&B/pop singer/songwriter Ne-Yo comes in at #4 with his fifth studio album, R.E.D. (making a pair of crimsons in the top-5). His first two albums topped the chart in 2006-7...

Veteran rock band Aerosmith arrives at #5 with their fifteenth studio set, Music From Another Dimension!. They took two albums to the top as well, with 1993's Get A Grip and 1997's Nine Lives...

Christian-rock group Third Day return at #10 with Miracle. It's their fourth consecutive studio album...

Massachussetts heavy metal outfit All That Remains are at #13 with A War You Cannot Win, the followup to their first top-10 album, For We Are Many...

Punk Goes Pop: Volume 5 crowdsurfs in at #16. It's the biggest yet in the series, and it features bands like Mayday Parade and Forever the Sickest Kids covering current pop hits by Gotye, Rihanna, fun, and more...

The second EP from this season of Glee, featuring songs from the musical they're somehow both graduates and student putting on (don't try to understand), gets them their first top-40 album of this season as Glee: The Music Presents Glease dances in at #28...

Three Now collections debut on the chart this week, and the second is NOW That's What I Call Disney, a compilation of singles from their classic animated films, and it floats in at #34...

At #52 is the London Philharmonic Orchestra putting a classical spin on Assassin's Creed and Halo with The Greatest Video Game Music 2...

Rappers E-40 and Too $hort both originally came from northern California cities, and they collaborated on a double disc work that enters at #97, History: Mob Music and Function Music. The set is also offered individually, and History: Function Music comes in a little higher at #62...

...while History: Mob Music is at #71. E-40 boasts a pair of top-10 albums, while Too $hort has five of his own...

Sandwiched between those albums at #65 is Bronx-born singer Romeo Santos, who went from leading the group Aventura to a solo career championing Dominican music. His The King Stays King: Sold Out At Madison Square Garden is his first solo live set, following a debut album which spun off a quartet of #1 Latin hits...

The third "NOW" set to debut, Now That's What I Call Today's Christmas, debut at #93. The sixth holiday CD under the brand, it featured both new and classic Christmas music from Carly Rae Jepsen, Mariah Carey, Coldplay, and more...

That does it for the first half of this sweep....out of these the three I would most recommend are the Ne-Yo, Romeo Santos, and the Now Disney sets....

I'll bring you the second half of the "sweep" tomorrow afternoon, with new stuff from Kylie Minogue, Crystal Castles, the biggest movie of the weekend's soundtrack, and more....