Album Sweep: March 8, 2014 - Part One...

Hey gang, as I'm waiting for Titan to hit the East Coast, it's time to kick off part one of this week's "album sweeps" sampling the records making their first appearance on the Top 200 Albums chart in Billboard magazine. As always, I've included highlighted links to buy the albums and some of the artists' other work when available, but please if you can get yourself to an indie record store and show some love.

The top-selling album of the week for its fifth non-consecutive week is the soundtrack to Frozen, selling close to ninety thousand copies. Expect it to continue with the Oscars broadcast on Sunday (the last day of the tracking week) and the week after...

The top debut of the week is from country newbie Cole Swindell, with his self-titled first album..Cole, from southern Georgia, is in the runner-up spot on the country airplay singles chart as well...

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Another act from Georgia, metalcore band Issues, has the other new entry in the top-10 with their self-titled full-length debut set...

Dropping in right under that mark at #11 is neo-new-wave duo Phantogram with Voices, their second full-length effort. The pair from New York are currently enjoying their first radio hit...

The winner of the twelfth season of American Idol, Candice Glover, lands at #14 with her debut album Music Speaks. The champ before her, Phillip Phillips, had one of the most successful albums in the franchise's history with his first set The World From The Side Of The Moon...

Boston indie jazz quartet Lake Street Dive gets the "Colbert bump" as their appearance on his show in most likely helpful for their #18 debut with their Bad Self Portraits...

Queens, New York-based punk rockers Bayside drop in at #24 with their sixth studio album Cult. It's their second to make the top-40 on the albums chart and highest rank as yet...

 Another New York punk band, We Are The In Crowd from Poughkeepsie, make it in at #29 with their second effort Weird Kids, their first to make the top half of the chart...

Christian pop singer Ellie Holcomb ascends to #34 with her debut full-length record, As Sure As The Sun...

That's all for the first half of the bunch...out of these eight the two I would grab first are the Phantogram and Lake Street Dive albums....

Tomorrow I'll roll out part two, with a couple of concert albums, "Luka"'s chronicler, and more...