Hope For Haiti Now, an album of highlights from last week's all-star telethon, debuts at #1 on this week's Billboard 200 chart. It's the first album from a benefit concert or telethon to reach #1. The granddaddy of such albums, 1971's The Concert For Bangla Desh, logged six weeks at #2. Ex-Beatle George Harrison was the driving force behind that concert and the resulting album. Another take-charge George, actor George Clooney, teamed with MTV Networks to spearhead Hope For Haiti Now

Nearly 20 charity albums have reached the top 40 since Harrison's ground-breaking release. Several of these albums urged Americans to look beyond their borders and respond to crises in such far-flung areas as Bangla Desh, Kampuchea, Africa, Kosovo and now Haiti. Three were created in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Three more were designed to raise money to fight AIDS. Others were created to stop nuclear power and to fight apartheid.

There were also top 40 albums that benefited Amnesty

Taylor Swift's Fearless logs its 52nd week in the top 10 on The Billboard 200. The country/pop blockbuster is one of only 18 albums to spend a full year in the top 10 since 1963, when Billboard combined its separate stereo and mono charts into one comprehensive listing.

The list of 18 albums is highly eclectic. It includes hard rock, R&B/pop, even a little hip-hop. It includes two movie soundtracks and an album of instrumental pop and a live album. In short, a little bit of everything.

There are some surprises on the list. If you asked people to name the group with the longest-running top 10 album, they'd probably guess the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Eagles or Fleetwood Mac before they'd come up with the right answer, Def Leppard. And if you asked people to name the all-female group with the longest-running top 10 album, they'd probably run through such more obvious choices as the Supremes, Go-Go's, Bangles, Dixie Chicks, TLC and Destiny's Child before they'd come up

Susan Boyle's I Dreamed A Dream sold 510,000 copies this week, bringing its five-week total to 2,968,000. It's the first album to top 500K in each of its first five weeks of release since December 2000, when the Beatles' 1 and Backstreet Boys' Black & Blue both did the trick. (The Beatles' compilation topped 500K in each of its first six weeks.) In the more than 18 years that Nielsen/SoundScan has tracked sales for Billboard, only one other album has topped 500K in each of its first five weeks of release. That's Garth Brooks' 1997 album, Sevens.

Some quick stats: I Dreamed A Dream is the first album to spend its first five weeks at #1 since 50 Cent's The Massacre in 2005. It's the first album by a female solo artist to spend its first five weeks at #1 since Norah Jones' Feels Like Home in 2004. It's the first album by a British artist to spend its first five weeks at #1 since Def Leppard's Adrenalize in 1992.

There's still one chart week to go in 2009, but it now seems clear that

Susan Boyle's I Dreamed A Dream sold 661,000 copies last week, bringing its four-week total to 2,461,000. It's now the second best-selling album of 2009, trailing only Taylor Swift's Fearless, which has sold 2,933,000 copies so far this year. With two chart weeks to go in 2009, will it surpass Fearless, which has a 472,000-unit lead? Place your bets.

I Dreamed A Dream is the first album to top 500,000 in sales in each of its first four weeks since December 2000, when the Beatles' 1 topped 500K in each of its first six weeks and Backstreet Boys' Black & Blue topped it in its each of its first five weeks. That was when the music business was at its peak; when CDs were flying out of record stores (remember them?). Boyle has achieved the feat in a much tougher environment for CD sales.

I Dreamed A Dream also tops the U.K. chart for the fourth straight week. It's the first album to log four or more weeks at #1 in both the U.S. and the U.K. since Norah Jones' 2003 smash Come Away With Me.