'We Are The World' Album No. 9 on Billboard Charts

by Richard De Atley
Associated Press
April 10, 1985

The "We Are the World" album aimed at helping hunger relief efforts made its debut at No. 9 on the Billboard album charts and sold 500,000 copies in its first week of release, a Billboard editor says.

The leap into the Top 10 "is incredible _ particularly so when you consider that not all the dealers we polled had the album," Tom Noonan said Tuesday.

Noonan said the last previous record to debut at No. 9 on the magazine's album chart was Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The USA," in June 1984. That album quickly went to No. 1, and "hasn't been out of the top four for 44 weeks," Noonan said.

Other top-selling albums, such as Michael Jackson's "Thriller," and Prince and the Revolution's "Purple Rain," debuted at the No. 11 spot, Noonan said.

Noonan said the hunger album will probably end up No. 1 in the magazine's later surveys.

The album contains the USA for Africa single "We Are The World," and songs contributed by such artists as Springsteen and the E Street Band, Prince and the Revolution, Huey Lewis and the News, the Pointer Sisters, Chicago, Tina Turner, and Northern Lights, a group of Canadian artists including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell.

The single "We Are The World," written by Jackson and Lionel Richie, took the No. 1 spot on Billboard's "Hot 100" chart last week.

The single was recorded in one session by 45 artists, including Kenny Rogers, Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, Miss Turner, Ray Charles, Harry Belafonte, Cyndi Lauper, Billy Joel, the Pointer Sisters and Dionne Warwick.

The charity album and single are part of a package put together by music promoter Ken Kragen that includes music and documentary videos, posters, T-shirts and other promotional items.

So far, the campaign has grossed $16 million for the hunger relief effort, Kragen And Co. spokesman Steve Warnick said Tuesday.