Madonna tops Billboard, iTunes charts

Madonna's new "Confessions On A Dance Floor" album debuted at the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Top 200 charts in the US as well as in 24 other countries and holds many of the top spots on Apple's iTunes. Three different configurations of "Confessions On A Dance Floor" are currently holding three out of four top downloads spots at Apple's iTunes Music store, while "Hung Up" is also No. 1 on iTunes overall singles chart. Altogether, the iTunes Music store sales represents nearly 10 percent of Madonna's overall CD sales, according to Warner Brothers. With sales of over 350,000 units in the U.S. alone, "Confessions On A Dance Floor," joins Madonna's two previous albums, "Music" and "American Life," as her third straight number one debut.

iTunes more than doubles Japan digital music

Apple's iTunes Music Store in Japan has helped accelerate the acceptance of the digital music in Japan. Macworld UK reports that the launch of iTunes Music Store in Japan helped more than double the number of songs purchased online during the third quarter of the year compared to the previous quarter, according to figures released by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) today. The association said there were 2.3 million downloads from Internet-based music stores during the July to September quarter. In the first and second quarters of this year downloads totalled 1.1 million and 1.0 million respectively, according to the RIAJ figures, which have only been available from this year." The report notes that the numbers represent "downloads," which are submitted by major digital music portals, so the number of songs--which are combined in a single "download" during an album purchase--may actually be greater.