Sade Control The Album Chart, “We Are The World” Debuts High On The Hot 100

Two pop forces with roots stretching back to the mid-’80s—English band Sade and charity single “We Are The World”—land high debuts on Billboard‘s Top 200 Albums and Hot 100 charts, respectively, this week. Hop below to find out just how stealth Sade’s Soldier Of Love proved to be.

Sade’s sixth studio album set a personal record for the band in the States. Billboard notes that, at 502,000 copies sold, Soldier Of Love gives the group its first #1 debut and its best sales week since SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991. It’s also the best sales week for an album by a group since AC/DC hit the top in 2008 after moving 784,000 copies of Black Ice. Looks like all those TV gigs over the past week paid off. (Watch Sade on The Today Show, The Late Show With David Letterman, The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live.)

Over on the Hot 100, Ke$ha is still #1 with “TiK ToK”—now for a ninth week. If she can last one more week, she’ll be tied with Debby Boone for having the longest stretch at the top of the chart with a debut single by a female solo artist.

The Artists For Haiti update of “We Are The World” shoots straight in at #2 on the Hot 100, based on 267,000 paid downloads after only two days. (The single was added to iTunes Friday night, and Billboard‘s weekly cut-off for tallying up chart data is Sunday night.)

And Jay-Z’s recent public dissing of the new version of “We Are The World” doesn’t seem to be affecting sales of the song—nearly a week later, it’s still #1 at iTunes.

However, Hova’s comments (“Some things are just untouchable. It was a valiant effort, but for me, it’s gonna be untouchable.”) perhaps do go a long way toward explaining why wife Beyonce didn’t lend her pipes to the track.

Back on the album chart, three other artists see Top 10 debuts: soul singer Jaheim’s Another Round comes in at #3 with 112,000 copies sold, country crooner Josh Turner’s Haywire is at #5 (85,000 copies) and former DC Talk member tobyMac debuts at #6 with Tonight (79,000).

The Top 10 of Billboard‘s Top 200 Albums:

1. Sade, Soldier Of Love *new* 2. Lady Antebellum, Need You Now 3. Jaheim, Another Round *new* 4. Lil Wayne, Rebirth 5. Josh Turner, Haywire *new* 6. tobyMac, Tonight *new* 7. Lady Gaga, The Fame 8. The Black Eyed Peas, The E.N.D. 9. Susan Boyle, I Dreamed A Dream 10. Taylor Swift, Fearless