‘Hope For Haiti Now’ Controls The Chart, Susan Boyle Kept A Lady In Waiting

Billboard announced earlier this week that the Hope For Haiti Now compilation would debut at #1 on the Top 200 Albums chart, but the final sales figures were better than predicted. After only two days of availability over the weekend before the cut-off period for this week’s chart, the charity concert album ended up selling a total of 171,000 copies. As Billboard notes, this marks the first time that a digital-only album has reached #1 on the Top 200.

So how did Susan Boyle (who was previously expected to return to the top this week), Ke$ha and the rest of the big players with albums out fare?

Boyle’s appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show last week did indeed help the melodic Scottish song tart boost sales of I Dreamed A Dream, which moved a total of 86,000 copies. (The week prior she sold 77,000.) Susan remains lodged at #2.

Last week’s #1 album, Vampire Weekend’s Contra, gets bumped down to #6, while two other new entries pop into the Top 10, at #4 (Spoon’s Transference) and #5 (the 2010 Grammy Nominees compilation).

So will Grammy-nominated trio Lady Antebellum be the ones to topple Hope For Haiti Now with just-released sophomore album Need You Now? They’re certainly bound to keep their sales momentum going for an extra week after performing at the awards show this Sunday.

Or will Susan Boyle bump, grind and croon her way back to the top? Stay tuned, pop pickers.

The Top 10 of Billboard‘s Top 200 Albums:

1. Various Artists, Hope For Haiti Now 2. Susan Boyle, I Dreamed A Dream 3. Lady Gaga, The Fame 4. Spoon, Transference 5. Various Artists, 2010 Grammy Nominees 6. Vampire Weekend, Contra 7. Alica Keys, The Element Of Freedom 8. Ke$ha, Animal 9. The Black Eyed Peas, The E.N.D. 10. Taylor Swift, Fearless