NEW YORK (Top40 Charts/
Leona Lewis Fans Website) - It was announced that Billboard Magazine names
Leona Lewis the Top New Artist of the Year in 2008. This tremendous news follows last week's announcement of her 3 Grammy Award nominations for Record of the Year ("
Bleeding Love"), Pop Vocal Performance ("
Bleeding Love"), and Best Pop Album (Spirit). Also this week,
Leona celebrates breaking another music business record with her new UK single "Run" (a cover of the
Snow Patrol song), hitting No 1 and becoming the fastest selling digital release ever. "Run" was also featured on a UK deluxe release of "
Spirit" which debuted at No 1 on the album chart upon its release November 17th. Last week, her debut single "
Bleeding Love" was named iTunes best selling single of 2008.
2008 has been a truly remarkable year for Leona Lewis. Since releasing her debut album Spirit in November of last year she literally hasn't stopped. She's been breaking world records, making chart history, traveling the globe , appearing on magazine covers and generally conquering the world. No one could have predicted the scale of the Hackney born UK singer's unrivalled success. In a short space of time Leona has established herself as an international superstar and household name. To date, Spirit has sold over 5 million copies around the world.
As a recap, to follow are other stats, chart and sales milestones achieved by Leona Lewis just this year:
Leona is the best selling new artist of 2008
Leona is the fifth best selling artist worldwide in 2008
Spirit is the 9th best selling album of 2008
"Bleeding Love" is the best selling single of 2008 and iTunes top selling single of the year.
MTV Networks I international have played "Bleeding Love" more than any other video this year, topping over 16,000 plays.
Spirit has been on a record-breaking tear ever since its release in November 2007 in the U.K, where it entered the British album chart at No. 1 and became the U.K.'s fastest-selling debut of all time. In the U.S., Spirit debuted at No 1 on the Billboard album chart a week after its release by J Records/SyCo Music on April 8th, 2008, marking the first time in music history that any album by a British female artist has entered Billboard's Top 200 album chart at No. 1, as well as the first time any British artist, male or female, has claimed the top spot with a debut album.
Blockbuster smash single "Bleeding Love," co-written by OneRepublic's Ryan Tedder, which reached No 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 the week of March 27th, making Lewis the first British female solo artist to top the Hot 100 in more than 21 years. The single spent 39 weeks on the chart, four of them at No 1 (breaking yet another all-time record for a British female solo artist) and smashed the radio spin record with the most weekly plays ever in a one-week period at the Top 40 radio format with 10,665 spins. "Bleeding Love," the biggest selling single of the year has been a Billboard Digital Song chart-topper and has sold more than 3 million tracks in the U.S., while the ringtone has been certified platinum with over 1.4 million sold, with a total of over 5 million digital and mobile track sales combined.
Leona's current hit single "Better In Time" reached the No 3 spot on the Top 40 chart is has sold 1.4 million digital and mobile tracks combined.
