Album Sweep: March 23, 2013 - Part One...

Hey gang, it's time to kick off this week's "album sweep", where I sample the records making their appearance on Billboard magazine's Top 200 Albums chart. As always, I've included links to buy what you see available online, but if you can, visit a record store and support the indies, please!

The top-selling album of the week is by country singer Luke Bryan, who shifted over 150 thousand of his compilation album Spring Break...Here To Party, which includes selections from his four previous Spring Break albums. The last one, Spring Break 4: Suntan City, made the top-10 last year. The highest Luke's been before is #2 with has Tailgates & Tanlines set....

(Click below to see the rest of the post)




Arriving at #2 is the late great guitarist Jimi Hendrix, with People, Hell and Angels, a collection of unreleased track from 1968 to 1970. Since his death in 1970, over thirty releases under his name have reached the charts. Out of those, four have made the top-10. Considering all his releases, only one album, Electric Ladyland, has topped the albums chart...

Another (quite alive) veteran guitarist, Boz Scaggs, comes in at #17 with his 21st album, Memphis. Back in 1976 Boz went to #2 with his classic Silk Degrees album, which went on to sell over five million copies in America...

Folk singer/songwriter Josh Ritter returns at #22 with Beast In Its Tracks. It's his first to reach the top-40, though he came close last time around with So Runs The World Away which reached #41 in 2010...

The third soundtrack to the Disney Channel TV series Shake It Up , subtitled I <3 dance="" i="">, shimmies in at #26. Their last, Live 2 Dance, went to #13 last year...

Trent Reznor's latest project How To Destroy Angels sees their debut full-length album Welcome Oblivion come in at #30. The group includes his wife Mariqueen Maandig...

Country singer Ashley Monroe, best known so far for her part in Miranda Lambert's side-group Pistol Annies, enters at #43 with her second solo effort, Like A Rose.

Indie-pop duo Rhye debut at #55 with their first album, Woman. They remind me a bit of Antony & The Johnsons....

Minneapolis experimental-rock collective Cloud Cult arrive at #57 with their latest, Love...

...and wrapping up this half, indie-pop long-timers They Might Be Giants are back with Nanobots at #58. They reached the top-40 on the albums chart for the first time with their last set, Join Us, in 2011..

That does it for this half of this week's new album crop. Out of these ten the three I'd go for first are the Rhye, Josh Ritter, and Ashley Monroe sets.

I'll be back tomorrow with the second half of this week's sweep with new stuff from Madeleine Peyroux, Son Volt, Marcus Canty, and more...