Album Sweep: November 29, 2014 - Part One...

Hey gang, I'm ready to roll out the first half of this week's "album sweep", sampling the records making the Top 200 Albums sales chart in Billboard magazine this week. This is the last week the "Top 200" will be a reliable sales chart, since the editors announced that they are changing the makeup of the chart to include not only individual track sales (where ten "singles"-like sales will equal an album), but internet streaming (where 1500 song streams will equal an album). Seriously. Maybe I should send them a dictionary to look up what an "album" is. Or are they so craven for a market that they'll never have since absolutely nobody pays any attention to their totally fictional "Artist 100" list they rolled out recently? Shit, make it easier and just ask a group of twelve-year-olds who they think should have the #1 album each week. I know that album sales are down, but we're still the biggest market in the world, and there's no reason to just shoot up numbers like that. Supposedly, they are retaining a sales-only chart on the side, but I'm still on the fence to whether I'll continue this part of the bloggie. But hey, I'm sure my OCD will just kick in..

Although three new albums sell over 100,000 copies in their first week, none of them could top Taylor Swift, who spends a third week on top with 1989 with over 300K sold. So after only three weeks that puts her probably only behind the soundtrack to Frozen and Beyonce's self-titled album in the year-end sales chart (which counts sales from December 2013 to November 2014)...

The alt-rock band Foo Fighters return at #2 with their eighth studio album Sonic Highways, which sold 190,000 copies in its first week. Seven of those eight have made the top-ten, with their last set Wasting Light going to #1 in 2011...

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Progressive rock gods Pink Floyd are back at #3 with The Endless River, their first "studio" album in twenty years. The release contains work recorded originally for their Division Bell album, before keyboardist Richard Wright succumbed to cancer. The release sold over 168,000 copies in its first week. In their long history the Floyd has topped the chart five times, most recently with their live release Pulse in 1995...

The third newbie to sell over 100K this week marks another big return, this time from the biggest name in country music in the 90s, Garth Brooks, as his Man Against Machine album (his first regular release in thirteen years) drops in at #4. A year ago his special Walmart exclusive box set Blame It All On My Roots topped the chart, the ninth time he's been to the top of the albums list...

Rapper and producer Big K.R.I.T. lands at #5 (selling less than half that Garth did) with his second regular release Cadillactica. His first, Live From The Underground, also went to #5 in 2012...

Former teen idol Nick Jonas comes in at #6 with his self-titled second solo album. He went to #3 in 2010 with his band The Administration with Who I Am, as well as topping the albums chart twice with his siblings as the Jonas Brothers...

Irish indie-folk singer/songwriter Damien Rice enters at #15 with My Favourite Faded Fantasy. It's his third studio album and highest rank in the US yet...

At #19 is the late great Whitney Houston with Live: Her Greatest Performances. The first official live release from the singer's work, it compiles her appearances from 1983's debut on the Merv Griffin show to her 2009 trip to Oprah. Whitney went to #1 on the albums chart three times in her life, with her self-titled debut, sophomore effort Whitney, and her last album I Look To You in 2009...

Country-rock heroes the Zac Brown Band arrives at #20 with Greatest Hits So Far... Their last two full-length studio albums, You Get What You Give and Uncaged, topped the Top 200 Albums list. This collection has every one of their country hits so far except for their "All Alright" work with Dave Grohl...

California groove-metal band Machine Head score their second top-40 album at #21 with Bloodstone And Diamonds, their eighth studio set....

Last week saw two archival releases from Bob Dylan, as his Basement Tapes got a extensive treatment. Now producer T-Bone Burnett assembles an all-star cast as the New Basement Tapes to record Lost In The River, an album based on lyrics Dylan had also penned during that time. Featuring Elvis Costello, Marcus Mumford (of Mumford & Sons), Taylor Goldsmith (from Dawes), Jim James (of My Morning Jacket), and Rhiannon Giddens (from Carolina Chocolate Drops), the set reworks fifteen rediscovered nuggets (twenty in the deluxe version). The set opens at #23...

Christian rock band Tenth Avenue North ascends to #32 with Cathedrals. In 2012 they climbed to #9 with The Struggle...

British rock icons Queen land at #38 with the archival release Forever, which includes material originally started before singer Freddie Mercury's death. It becomes their fifteenth release to make the American albums top-40; they topped the chart in 1980 with The Game...

Dominican music legend Juan Luis Guerra moves in at #65 with Todo Tiene Su Hora, his twelfth studio album...

That's all for the first half of the new bunch....it's a real tough decision but out of this baker's dozen the four to check out first are the Foo Fighters, Nick Jonas, Queen, and Damien Rice...

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