Viva La Vida Tops Billboard 200 & UK Album Chart

Sydney, AU. (Top40 Charts/ EMI MUSIC Australia) - Australia is not the only country to make Coldplay's latest album storm up the charts. Around the world, the astonishing 'Viva La Vida' has similarly scored a No. 1 status. We're actually starting to worry about the album's effect on the global warming - all the traffic jams around record stores and increased electricity used by downloading the album must be having an effect on the environment!

In the U.S., 'Viva La Vida' has debuted at No. 1 with over 720,000 copies sold in its first week of release. The album has also topped the U.K. album chart for the second week in a row, where it is the fastest-selling album of the year, and No. 1 rankings continue to come in from around the globe including here in Australia plus Japan, Canada, France and Germany.

'Viva La Vida' is already the biggest album pre-order in iTunes history, and has also set the record for highest first-week album sales ever on the iTunes Store worldwide. Today the album's second single 'Viva La Vida' surpassed 'Clocks' as the band's biggest-selling single to date on the iTunes Store. 'Viva La Vida' hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 last week, marking Coldplay's first Hot 100 No. 1 single ever, and it debuted this week at No. 1 on the U.K. Singles chart.

In short, very soon every music collection on the planet will contain this album, and who wants to be the odd one out? Wrap your ears around it now and get it from iTunes or Sanity.

In performance news, Coldplay will perform in the U.S. on Comedy Central's 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart' today, June 25th, and on the "TODAY" show on NBC this Friday, June 27th. The band will also appear on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" on July 17th. Lead singer Chris Martin is featured on the cover of the current U.S. Rolling Stone and Coldplay is on the cover of Spin's July issue (on sale now in the U.S.).

The band celebrated the release of 'Viva La Vida' with a free concert at arguably the world's most famous venue - New York City's Madison Square Garden this week and will launch its North American tour with two sold out dates at The Forum in Los Angeles on July 14th and 15th. Details on the tour are available at www.coldplay.com or at www.livenation.com.