Album Sweep: December 27, 2014...

I'm ready to roll out this week's "album sweep", sampling the records making their debut on Billboard magazine's album sales chart this week (and not their ratchet Top 200 including streaming and singles sales). As usual, I've included links to buy any of the new sets, along with some of the artists' other major work. But if you can, drop on down to an indie record store and stock up for Christmas!

R&B/Hip Hop singer and rapper J. Cole lands his third #1 album out of three tries as 2014 Forest Hills Drive sold over 350,000 copies in its first week. He also topped the album chart with his debut Cole World: The Sideline Story in 2011 and Born Sinner in 2013...

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American Idol season-four champ Carrie Underwood's compilation Greatest Hits: Decade #1 sold just under a 100K to land at #4 on the chart this week. Her last three albums out of her four releases have topped the chart, most recently with Blown Away in 2012...

R&B singer and Love & Hip Hop reality show fodder K. Michelle puts her sophomore effort Anybody Wanna Buy A Heart in at #6. Her debut set, Rebellious Soul, went to #2 in 2013...

Billy Corgan and his band Smashing Pumpkins return at #29 with their ninth studio album Monuments To An Elegy. Seven of their releases have gone to the top-10, with Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness reaching #1 in 1995...

Alt-rock "supergroup" Angels & Airwaves, featuring Tom Delonge from Blink-182, are back at #35 with their fifth album together, The Dream Walker. Their first, We Don't Need To Whisper, climbed to #4 in 2006..

Former New Edition singer Johnny Gill's seventh solo album Game Changer enters the chart at #43. His self-titled third album in 1990 (when his star with New Edition was high) rose to #8...

PRhyme, a collaborative moniker for rapper Royce da 5'9" and DJ Premier, enters at #50 with their self-titled first release..

Veteran rapper E-40 arrives at #55 with Sharp On All 4 Corners: Corner 1. Back in 1996 he went to #4 with The Hall Of Game...

The seventh compilation from the musical drama Nashville to chart on the sales list is Nashville, The Music Of: Season 3: Volume 1, which lands at #59. Nashville: On The Record went to #8 in the spring...

Rapper and Wu-Tang Clan member Ghostface Killah moves in at #72 with 36 Seasons, his eleventh solo album. His first, Ironman, climbed all the way to #2 in 1996...

British modern rock band Bastille claims the last debut of the week at #74 with the "mixtape" EP VS. (Other People's Heartache, Vol. III). Their full-length debut album, Bad Blood, peaked at #11 in the States...

That's it for the new crop...out of these eleven the three I'd recommend first are the Carrie Underwood, Angels And Airwaves, and Bastille sets...