Album Sweep: October 11, 2014 - Part One...

It's time to kick off the first part of this week's "album sweep", sampling the records making their debut on this week's Top 200 Albums sales chart in Billboard magazine. As always, I've included highlighted links to buy any of the new releases, as well as some of the artists' other big work. This week is flooded with new stuff, with 35 records making their way on the chart, so I'm gonna split this into three parts...

In a "heated" competition for #1 this week, a pair beats an ace, as Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga's collaborative album Cheek To Cheek lands on top, selling over 131,000 copies. I'm sure the discount to $5.99 on Amazon at the end of the week goosed it up just enough. It arrives as Mother Monster's third #1 album after The Fame Monster and Born This Way (which also benefited from a price cut), while 88-year-old Bennett enjoys his second chart-topper after doing so with Duets II in 2011...

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Country star and beachcomber Kenny Chesney settles in for the runner-up position with 130,000 sold in its first week. He's had seven previous album reach #1, including his last effort Life On A Rock in 2013...

British "art-rock" indie band alt-J land at #4 with their second album This Is All Yours. It's their first to even make the top-40 in America, and it's their first #1 album in the UK as well...

Acappella superstars Pentatonix come in at #5 with PTX: Vol III, an EP of seven covers and originals. It's their third consecutive extended play (which includes a seasonal set) to make the top-10, and their highest rank yet...

Blues-rock singer/songwriter Joe Bonamassa lands his first top-10 album as his eleventh solo effort Different Shades Of Blue is in at #8...

Actress and singer Jennifer Hudson's third record, JHUD, enters at #10. Her first two, a self-titled debut in 2008 and I Remember Me in 2011, both reached #2...

Electronica veteran Aphex Twin, aka Richard D. James, is back after a thirteen-year break with his highest-charting album in the U.S., Syro, at #11. His first set Selected Ambient Works 1985-92 is ranked among the best albums of all time in Rolling Stones' big list...

As Tony Bennett reigns at #1, another octogenarian, Canadian national treasure Leonard Cohen, arrives at #15 with Popular Problems. Has last studio album, Old Ideas, cracked the top-3 in 2012...

On the other end of the age spectrum, 14-year-old classical singer Jackie Evancho moves in at #17 with her fifth studio outing Awakening. Both her second full-length, Dream With Me, and a Christmas EP, O Holy Night, both made it to #2...

John Mellencamp returns at #18 with his latest, Plain Spoken. It's the Indiana native's 22nd studio album; ten of those have reached the top ten, with his breakthrough record American Fool (as "John Cougar") topping the list in 1982...

Lenny Kravitz also comes in at #19 with his newest, Strut. It's his tenth studio effort; his eighth, It Is Time For A Love Revolution, so far has gone the highest at #4 in 2008, while his Greatest Hits went to #2 in 2000...

That's it for the first third of the bunch...out of these eleven the three I would recommend going for first are the alt-J, Pentatonix, and John Mellencamp sets...

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