Album Sweep: August 10, 2013 - Part Two....

I'm ready for the second half of this week's "Album Sweep" where I sample the records spending their first week on Billboard magazine's Top 200 Albums sales charts. You can check out part one by clicking here, and as before I've included links to buy anything if I can (iTunes excluded)...

Rocking in at #47 is "gypsy punk" band Gogol Bordello from New York with their sixth studio album Pure Vida Conspiracy. Two of the band members performed on tour with Madonna during her tour in the 2000s...

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The Starbucks exclusive Motown 25 collects the biggest hits of the label all in one CD for the ultra-casual fan, and it arrives at #53. It also contains this rare nugget...

San Diego hardcore rock act Secrets come in at #59 with their second album Fragile Figures. It's their first to make the top half of the chart...

Outlaw country great Guy Clark is in at #62 with his new album My Favorite Picture Of You. Although he's been reaching the country albums chart since 1975, this is only his second to make the big chart (and the first was his last in 2011)....

Disturbed side-project Fight or Flight pop in at #87 with their first set Life By Design?....

Smurfing in at #112 is the album The Smurfs 2: Music from and inspired by, which includes songs from Britney Spears, Owl City, and Right Said Fred doing "I'm So Smurfy"....

The "hipster" release of the week, North Carolina folk-rock group The Mountain Goats' re-release of their 2002 album All Hail West Texas, on vinyl, as well as CD, allows them to finally reach the chart at #140...
 

Iconic country vocal group the Statler Brothers enter at #145 with The Best Of The Farewell Concert. In their career they have placed 15 albums on the Top 200 chart since 1966's Flowers On The Wall...This release is a distillation from the original full concert release in 2003...

Rock group Jimmy Eat World's new studio album Damage recently debuted at #14, and now their iTunes Sessions EP arrives at #156. It contains their cover of Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" that's actually not half-bad...

That does it for this week's second set...out of these nine the three I'd go for first are the Guy Clark, Gogol Bordello, and Mountain Goats releases....