Despite being in stores for much less than a full week, the recording of Friday's all-star charity telethon has debuted atop the album charts (knocking down Vampire Weekend's Contra and more importantly, Ke$ha). You can watch some performances (e.g., Jay-Z, Bono, The Edge & Rihanna's "Stranded (Haiti Mon Amour)," Timberlake covering "Hallejulah," a possibly prerecorded "Like A Prayer") at the link in the previous sentence. Pre-order functionality was broken during the live airing, but the entire operation remains an impressive production feat. Buy it (iTunes | Amazon)! Or start with Sting & The Roots' excellent and remarkably apropos "Driven To Tears" if you can't afford the entire collection. As the headline says, Hope For Haiti Now is the first ever digital-only album to reach the top of the Billboard charts. Also notable is that Taylor Swift covers Better Than Ezra ("Breathless") on it. That's right, Better Than Ezra at #1. At #2 ... Ezra. (I've been waiting 15 years to steal that joke from Norm Macdonald.) Hope For Haiti Now has raised $61 million so far for the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, Oxfam America, Partners in Health, Red Cross, UNICEF, United Nations World Food Programme, Yele Haiti Foundation, and Partners in Health.
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