posted by: Sherwin Coelho Jan 28 2010 @ 4:02 am

The ‘Hope For Haiti‘ album is now the #1 US album based on download sales (171,000 copies and counting). With this, it becomes the first digital-only release to achieve this feat since records first came into existence six decades ago.

While half of India were busy catching up on their week’s sleep on Saturday morning, the cream of America’s A-list stars and musicians got together to help their earthquake-ravaged country, Haiti.

The three-hour ‘Hope For Haiti‘ telethon featured artist performances, harsh realities and desperate pleas. While it was, overall, a sad and morose telethon, the cause for which all Hollywood A-listers and top musicians of the world united is highly commendable and what a difference their efforts have made!

More than 80 million viewers tuned in to the telethon, conceptualized by George Clooney, and it is estimated to have raised $66 million which will be used via relief organizations to help Haiti get its life back on track.

Stars such as Reese Witherspoon, Julia Roberts and Steven Spielberg answered live calls from citizens who made cash donations; CNN’s Anderson Cooper was reporting with live broadcast feeds from Port-au-Prince and stars like Halle Berry, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Nicole Kidman told touching stories of how life for the people in Haiti changed drastically in a matter of a few seconds.

Only yesterday, Jennifer Aniston donated a further $500,000 for the Haiti earthquake victims.

The album ‘Hope For Haiti‘, which is a 20-track downloadable on i-Tunes, has now become the #1 US album, finally nudging UK-sensation Susan Boyle from the pinnacle of the charts. What’s more impressive is that the album was available for download only from Friday.

While Alicia Keys opens the album, it is Coldplay’s ‘A Message 2010‘ that will move you. Did you know that ‘Hum Honge Kamyaab‘ is the remake of an English song? Bruce Springsteen delivers an exact translation on ‘We Shall Overcome‘.

Shakira, Taylor Swift, Beyonce Knowles and Mary.J.Blige use soft ballads with soaring vocals to drive their message across. However, Sting takes a more progressive route on the riff-driven, bluesy ‘Driven To Tears‘.

Three collaborations that I was blown away by were acoustic hippies Sheryl Crow, Kid Rock and Keith Urban singing ‘Lean On Me‘; Justin Timberlake and Matt Maori’s duet ‘Hallelujah‘ and Bono, The Edge, Jay Z and Rihanna with the R&B ‘Stranded‘. These are collaborations few Grammy Awards can boast of!

Madonna’s ‘Like A Prayer‘ was so brilliant it proved she is defying the age cycle and Wyclef Jean’s ‘Rivers of Babylon‘ was overflowing with emotion for his homeland.

Bottomline: This one’s better than a ‘Best-Of’ album!