Album Sweep: May 3, 2014 - Part Two...

Part two of this week's "album sweep" is up, sampling the records making their first appearance on Billboard magazine's Top 200 Albums chart. You can check out part one by clicking here, and as before I've included links to buy the new records plus some of the artists' other work...

Queens rapper Pharoah Monch comes in at #102 with his fourth solo studio album P.T.S.D. (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). His first, Internal Affairs, stopped right below the top-40 at #41 in 1999...

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Neo-traditional country duo the Secret Sisters see their sophomore effort Put Your Needle Down at #110...



Ian Anderson, the former lead singer and flautist for the progressive rock group Jethro Tull, enters at #111 with Homo Erraticus. Two years prior, his Thick As A Brick 2 set (a "sequel" of sorts to the #1 album from his old band from 1972) went to #55, and this new one continues the story...

One of my prize Record Store Day purchases was a bright orange 45 of Green Day's cover of Husker Du's "Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely" from a few years back. Their release for this year is much more ambitious. Demolicious has 18 demos as well as an unreleased song, and it comes in at #112...

The soundtrack album Rio 2: Music From The Motion Picture flies in at #124. The sequel relatively flopped in the US, opening with just 12 million for a film with a budget of over 103 million, but made up for it in overseas earnings. The album has selections from Janelle Monae, Bruno Mars, Ester Dean, and more. The soundtrack to the first Rio went to #60 in 2011...

The late reggae legend Bob Marley's song Ziggy pops in at #129 with Fly Rasta, his fifth solo album. It's his highest rank with a solo set; in 1988 he went to #23 with his former band the Melody Makers with Conscious Party...

Country and western music icon Ray Price passed away last year, and now his Beauty Is...The Final Sessions comes in at #143. Back in 1970 his album For The Good Times peaked at #28 on the Top 200....

Texan Christian singer and religious leader Cindy Cruse-Ratcliff lands at #146 with "Heaven Raining Down".

Australian electronica musician Chet Faker comes in at #158 with his first full-length album Built On Glass. The record went to #1 in his home country...

The Swedish House Mafia made be "splitting" but their One Last Tour: A Live Soundtrack arrives at #161. In 2012 their Until Now album peaked at #14...

Krishna Das (born Jeffrey Kagel), a singer born in Long Island but specialized in the kirtan style of Indian music he grew to love, enters at #167 with Kirtan Wallah...



Country singer/songwriter Rodney Crowell is back at #168 with Tarpaper Sky, his fourteenth studio album. His last, Old Yellow Moon with Emmylou Harris, was his first to make the top-40 at #29 in 2013...

Swiss "doom metal" act Triptykon drops in at #171 with their second full-length record Melana Chasmata. It's their first to make the chart...

The final new entry on the chart this week at #184 is the cast album to the original broadway production of The Bridges Of Madison County. The soundtrack to the original film (with different music) went to #47 in 1995...


That's it for the second half of the new bunch...out of these fourteen the three I would go for first are the Chet Faker, Secret Sisters, and the Bridges Of Madison County records...