Lionel Richie keeps Jason Mraz off Billboard top spot

(Reuters) – Lionel Richie staved off stiff

competition to hold onto the top spot of the Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday, beating out new entries from Jason Mraz

and Train.

“Tuskegee,” the country music-inspired 10th studio album from the 62-year-old soul singer, made the

rare climb to No. 1 last week, three weeks after the album’s release and continued to hold strong this week with 114,000

copies sold.

Grammy-winning pop singer Jason Mraz debuted at No. 2 with his fourth studio album “Love Is A Four Letter

Word,” a collection of laid-back, beach-inspired love songs selling 102,000 copies in its first week.

The album’s

lead single, “I Won’t Give Up,” went platinum this week after selling more than a million copies since its release in

January.

Pop rockers Train returned last week with their sixth studio album “California 37,” debuting at No. 4 after

selling 75,000 copies, while newcomer rapper Future scored an impressive debut at No. 8 on the chart with his first album

“Pluto,” selling 41,000 copies.

California quintet Maroon 5 stormed the Digital Songs chart with “Payphone,” their

first single from their upcoming album “Overexposed.”

The track, featuring rapper Wiz Khalifa, sold more than 493,000

downloads in its first week, the best-ever digital song sales week for a band, knocking last week’s chart-topper Gotye’s

“Somebody That I Used To Know,” to the No. 2 position.

Fun.’s “We Are Young” featuring Janelle Monae came in at No. 3

while “Boyfriend” by Justin Bieber and “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen hold steady at No. 4 and No. 5

respectively.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy, Editing by Jill Serjeant)