Album Sweep: September 28, 2013 - Part One...

Hey gang, it's time to roll out part one of this week's "album sweep" sampling the records reaching the Top 200 Albums chart in Billboard magazine for the first time. As usual, I've included links to buy anything if possible...

The top-selling album of the week is by country singer Keith Urban, with his second #1 album Fuse. He also hit the top four years ago with Defying Gravity. Now when the firm that provides the data for this chart, SoundScan, announced this week's list, at first this was a hair behind at #2, but a retallying of the numbers put this ahead, at just under a hundred thousand copies...

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The album that briefly claimed the #1 title was the first full-length studio album for Canadian singer and producer the Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye) with Kiss Land. Previously his collection of mixtapes, Trilogy, made it to #5...

Rapper 2 Chainz places his second official album, B.O.A.T.S. II #METIME, at #3 on the chart. His first, Based On A T.R.U. Story, topped the chart a year ago...

Critics' fave Jonelle Monae sees her sophomore full-length album The Electric Lady become her biggest so far at #5...

English alternative rock band Arctic Monkeys lands their second top-10 album at #6 with AM. Their first, Favourite Worst Nightmare, went to #7 in 2007...

Sheryl Crow crosses over from rock to country as her first "country" album, Feels Like Home, arrives at #7. Four of her releases consecutively made it to #2 on the albums chart: C'mon C'mon (2002), her compilation The Very Best Of Sheryl Crow (2003), Wildflower (2005), and Detours (2008)....

Classic R&B collective Earth, Wind & Fire return at #11 with their first studio album in eight years, Now, Then & Forever. In their career they've went to #1 twice in 1975, with the studio album That's The Way Of The World and their live set Gratitude...

Chicago native Kaskade (Ryan Raddon) scores his second consecutive top-20 album after Fire & Ice went to #17 by going a notch higher with Atmosphere...

Another Chicago-based act, hardcore punk band Rise Against, are at #19 with Long Forgotten Songs: B-Sides & Covers 2000-2013. Their last studio album, Endgame, went all the way to #2 in 2011...

Iconic Cuban-American singer Gloria Estefan dips her feet in the songbook pool with The Standards at #20. She's had four top-10 albums (including one with the Miami Sound Machine), with Into The Light reaching #5 in 1991...

Groundbreaking Christian pop group Newsboys from Australia are back at #38 with Restart. It's their sixth top-40 album in the States; in 2010 they took Born Again to #4...

Another Christian music artist, rapper Derek Minor, enters at #40 with Minorville, his fourth full-length....

Australian pop/punk band Tonight Alive, with lead singer Jenna McDougall, come in with their first to make the big chart, The Other Side, at #43...

Newcomers Balance and Composure slip in at #51 with The Things We Think We're Missing...

Former Dire Straits leader Mark Knopfler's seventh solo album, Privateering, makes it on the chart at #65. His last, Get Lucky, made it to #17 in 2009. This set was released internationally a year ago, but finally gets an American release after a label dispute...

That's it for the first half of this week's crop...out of these fifteen the three I'd choose first are the Janelle Monae, Arctic Monkeys, and Earth Wind & Fire sets...

I'll be back tomorrow with new stuff from an iconic electronia act, Madge goes live, and a pop/rock band coming back from "1985".