Album Sweep: August 30, 2014 - Part One...

It's time to kick off the first half of this week's "album sweep", sampling the records making their way on to the official Top 200 Albums sales chart in Billboard magazine. As always, I've included highlighted links to buy any of the new sets, as well as some of the artists' other major work. Support the talent!

The top-selling album of the week for the second week in a row is the Guardians Of The Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1 collection, coming close to selling another hundred thousand copies in its third week.

The highest debuting album of the week at #4 comes from the Gaslight Anthem, an alternative rock band from New Brunswick, New Jersey, with their fifth full-length album Get Hurt. Their last record, Handwritten, went in a notch higher in 2012...

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Troye Sivan, an Australian actor/singer who was born in South Africa, lands at #5 with his EP TRXYE. Aside from his music career, he's best known for his role as the young boy who would become Wolverine in the X-Men: Origins film series....

R&B singer Tank (aka Durrell Babbs) comes in at #13 with his fifth solo album Stronger. Back in 2007 he went to #2 with Sex, Love & Pain. All five plus last year's collaboration with Tyrese and Ginuwine, Three Kings, have made the top-40 on the big chart...

Synthpop artist Porter Robinson debuts at #18 with his first full-length effort Worlds...

SOJA, a reggae group from Virginia, enters at #20 with their sixth project Amid The Noise and Haste...It's their second top-40 album and highest rank as yet..

The winner of the 13th season of American Idol, Caleb Johnson, makes his way on to the chart at #24 with Testify. It now stands as the lowest-charting debut set from an Idol winner, beating out Lee Dewyze's entry at #19...

English singer FKA twigs (born Tahliah Barnett) drops in at #30 with her first record LP1...

San Franciscan "slam poet" Watsky moves in at #33 with his fourth studio album All You Can Do...

Sam Hunt, a country singer who wrote Billy Currington's recent #1 hit "We Are Tonight", enters at #36 with his own EP X2C...

Texan deathcore band Upon A Burning Body fires up the chart at #39 with their third album and first top-40, The World Is My Enemy Now...

Rapper Twista returns at #40 with his ninth studio set and first in four years, Dark Horse. He's had four top-10 albums, with Kamikaze going all the way to #1 in 2004...

That's it for the first half of the new crop...out of this eleven the three I would go for first are the Gaslight Anthem, FKA twigs, and Tank albums...

I'll be back tomorrow with part two...