Album Sweep: November 15, 2014 - Part One...

Hey gang, it's time to kick off this week's "album sweep", sampling the records making the official American Top 200 Albums sales chart in Billboard magazine this week. There are a whopping 43 releases making their debut on the chart, so I'll break this sweep up into four parts between today and tomorrow. As always, I'll include highlighted links to buy anything you see. Support the talent!!!

And talking about support, Taylor Swift beats the odds and sells over 1.2 million copies of her pop-oriented album 1989 in its first week to become the top-selling album of the week. It's her third million-selling set after Speak Now and Red....

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With this big sales week for Swift it's easy to overlook the feat of the 52nd volume in the Now! That's What I Call Music American edition selling over 100,000 copies to land at #2 on the chart. Although it only sports one #1 hit (Meghan Trainor's "All About That Bass"), there are seven more top-ten hits among its 21 tracks (the other #1 song in this quarter, Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off", is nowhere to be seen, of course)...

Country newcomer Sam Hunt makes his debut at #3 with his first full-length album Montevallo. He previously made the top-40 with a promo EP. The former football player has the #1 country song in America right now...

71-year-old singer/songwriter/producer/showman Barry Manilow returns at #4 with My Dream Duets. The "event record" pairs Barry with eleven deceased artists like Mama Cass and Whitney Houston to "recreate" collaborations. Barry has topped the albums chart twice - with Barry Manilow Live in 1977 and again in 2006 with The Greatest Songs Of The Fifties...

 Christian-pop artist Chris Tomlin ascends to #8 with his seventh effort Love Ran Red. Last year he took Burning Lights to #1 on the Top 200...

The Black Veil Brides, a glam metal band from Cincinnati that's gone more symphonic rock, score their second top-10 album as their self-titled fourth album comes in at #10. Their last, Wretched And Divine: The Story Of The Wild Ones, went to #7 last year...

Christian hip-hop artist Trip Lee, formerly with the act 116 Clique, claims his second top-20 album and highest rank to date with Rise...

Punk icons Rancid are back at #20 with their first album in five years, ...Honor Is All We Know. Their last effort, Let The Dominoes Fall, climbed to #11...

Singer/songwriter Cat Stevens, under his Yusuf moniker, lands at #24 with Tell 'Em I'm Gone. Before he converted to Islam and changed his name, he placed seven albums in the top-10, with Catch Bull At Four topping the chart in 1972...

Chris Webby, a rapper from Connecticut, makes his first appearance in the top-40 with Chemically Imbalanced, his first full-length album...

That's it for the first quarter of the new bunch...out of these ten the three to check out first are the Taylor Swift, Rancid, and Trip Lee sets...

I'll be back later tonight with part two...