LOS ANGELES: At 88, veteran crooner Tony Bennett broke his own record as the oldest living artist to land a No 1 record on the weekly US Billboard 200 album chart with his latest compilation of duets with Lady Gaga. Cheek to Cheek, which features New York singers Bennett and Gaga singing classics such as Anything Goes and Let’s Face The Music And Dance, sold 131,000 copies in its first week, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan.
Bennett previously set the record for becoming the oldest-living artist to land a No. 1 album in 2011 aged 85, with his compilation Duets, which also included a track with Gaga.
Cheek to Cheek is the second compilation of classic songs to top the Billboard 200 chart for the second consecutive week, after fellow New York songstress Barbra Streisand’s Partners debuted at No 1 last week.
Other new albums to break into the top 10 of the Billboard 200 chart, which measures physical and digital album sales across all genres, include English indie rockers Alt-J at No 4 with This Is All Yours and a cappella group Pentatonix at No 5 with PTX, Vol. III.
Blues rocker Joe Bonamassa clocked in at No 8 with Different Shades of Blues and R&B singer Jennifer Hudson rounded out the top 10 with her new album JHUD.
For the week ending September 28, total album sales clocked in at 4.4 million units, down 14 percent from the comparable week in 2013, while year-to-date total sales totaled 175.71 million, also down 14 percent from last year, Billboard said.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 3rd, 2014.
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