Album Sweep: June 8, 2013 - Part One...

It's time to kick off the first half of this week's "album sweep" sampling the records spending their first week on Billboard magazine's Top 200 Albums sales charts. As always, I've included links to buy anything if possible, but if you can stop at an indie store and your karma will go up exponentially...

The top-selling record of the week is the highly-anticipated fourth regular album release from French electro-dance duo Daft Punk, who sold 339 thousand copies of Random Access Memories. That's almost three times as much as their last regular set Human After All, which went to #98 in 2005. Their previous biggest album was the Tron: Legacy soundtrack from 2010 which reached #4....

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Coming in at the runner-up spot is the biggest country album of the week, Darius Rucker, with True Believers. Apart from his work leading Hootie & The Blowfish, this matches the peak of his last album Charleston, SC 1966. His "Wagon Wheel" spends a second week on top of the Country Airplay chart...

Arriving at #3 is indie-rock band The National with their sixth full-length album Trouble Will Find Me. It also matches the high of their last set, 2010's High Violet....

Rapper French Montana, who was born in the northern African nation of Morocco but now calls the Bronx his home, debuts at #4 with his first album, Excuse My French....(NSFW)

The fifth album to debut in the top-10 is the first to reach that level for modern rock group 30 Seconds to Mars, led by actor/singer Jared Leto (probably the most credible double talents to cross over). Their fourth effort, Love, Lust, Faith, and Dreams, arrives at #6....(NSFW)

After the passing from bone cancer of 18-year-old Zach Sobiech, his video for his song "Clouds" has gone viral, and the EP from his band A Firm Handshake called Fix Me Up comes on the chart at #20. Proceeds from the song "Clouds" go to the fund set up in his name as part of the Children's Cancer Fund...

 The soundtrack to the biggest movie of last week, Fast And Furious 6, enters at #32. It has tracks from T.I., deadmau5, Crystal Method, Ludacris, and more...

The second collaborative effort between singer/songwriter Beth Hart and blues-rock guitar king Joe Bonamassa, See Saw, places at #47....

Christian Rock group the David Crowder Band arrives at #70 with All This For A King: The Essential Collection. Their last studio album, Give Us Rest..., debuted at #2 on the main albums chart last year...

That's it for the first part of this week's crop - out of these nine the three I'd pick first are the Daft Punk, Firm Handshake, and 30 Seconds From Mars sets....

I'll be back tomorrow with the second half including music from the Beach Boys, New Politics, Audra MacDonald, and more...