Album Sweep: December 6, 2014 - Part Two...

Part two of this week's "album sweep" is up, sampling the records making their debut on Billboard magazine's Top 200 Albums sales chart (the last "Top 200" supposedly sales-based only). You can check out part one by clicking here. As before, I've included links to buy any of the new sets, as well as some of the artists' other major work, if possible. Support the talent!

Northern Irish Christian music group the Rend Collective has been one of the acts most enjoyable even to non-believing listeners, and the indie-folk act ascends to #61 with Campfire Christmas, Volume 1. Earlier this year they peaked at #13 with The Art Of Celebration...


(Click below to see the rest of the post)


California metalcore band the Ghost Inside lands their highest rank yet as their fourth album Dear Youth is in at #63...

Art-rock legend Bryan Ferry is back at #72 with his fifteenth studio album Avonmore. Back in the mid-80s he had back to back albums reach #63 with Boys and Girls and Bête Noire (both awesome records), and this one sounds a lot like those two...(NSFW for bare man buttocks)

The exclusive Cities 97 Sampler: Live From Studio C: Volume 26, which you can only get from around the Minneapolis/St. Paul area Target stores, sold enough of the charity disc to climb in at #81. You can check out the fervor of opening day sales here. The Triple-A-styled set has live-in-studio performances from the likes of American Authors, Echosmith, Mary Lambert, and more...


The box set The Albums Collection, Volume 1: 1973-1984 from Bruce Springsteen, which includes probably best-known albums from Greetings From Asbury Park to Born In The U.S.A. all remastered, enters at #82. He's done quite well with oversized releases, topping the albums chart in 1986 with his then 5-LP Live 1975/1985...

Indie-rock band Copeland, from central Florida, move in at #93 with their fifth album Ixora. It's their first full-length album in six years; their last, You Are My Sunshine, made it to #48...

The soundtrack to the remake of the classic musical Annie starring Quvenzhane' Wallis and Jamie Foxx comes in at #116. Besides songs from the original Broadway and film production (with some altered with new music, erm), the release includes three new songs co-written by Sia. The soundtrack to the 1982 version of the movie, with Aileen Quinn and Carol Burnett, went to #35 and was one of the top-selling albums of 1982, while the Broadway cast album with Andrea McCardle peaked at #89 but sold over a million copies in 1977...

Country singer Sara Evans sleighs in at #135 with At Christmas, her second seasonal release and first to chart. Earlier this year she landed her fourth top-10 album with Slow Me Down...

Dubstep artist RL Grime enters at #137 with Void...

Indie-rock singer/songwriter Ariel Pink arrives at #150 with Pom Pom. His last effort, Mature Themes, came in at #136 in 2012...

New Zealand-born pop singer Brooke Fraser sails in at #157 with her fourth album Brutal Romantic. Her last release Flags is her best rank so far, peaking at #59 in 2010...

The budget release Santa Claus Music Puzzle makes the chart at #163, though I can't find anybody that sells it...

The compilation 5 Years of Deadmau5 enters at #172. In June his While (1<2 i=""> album came in at #9...

Mexican pop singer Thalia is at #173 with Amore Mio. Her self-titled English pop effort went to #11 in 2003...

The final new entry on the chart at #196 is the Target exclusive Classic Christmas, with three CDs of older holiday music....

That's it for the second half of the newbies...out of these fifteen I would recommend checking out the Ariel Pink, Thalia, Deadmau5, and Rend Collective records first...