ΤONY BENNETT IS AT No1 WITH 'DUETS 2'

The music business is simple! All you have to do to hit Number One is perform relentlessly high-quality material for almost 70 years, never yield to fads or trends, become a beloved pop icon, then fly to studios around the world to make a duets album with Lady Gaga, Mariah Carey, Carrie Underwood, John Mayer, Amy Winehouse just before she dies at age 27 and other gigantic superstars less than a third of your age. That was Tony Bennett's formula, and it worked perfectly. The 85-year-old singer's Duets II hit Number One by selling 179,000 copies – fewer than his first Duets collection, in 2006, which racked up 202,000. Interestingly, he wasn't quite as smooth on iTunes, hitting just Number Four; Demi Lovato's Unbroken was Number One over there, and Adele and NeedtoBreathe's Reckoning beat him out as well. (Side note on NeedtoBreathe, the Seneca, South Carolina, rock band: We saw the boys open for Taylor Swift in Denver, and they did something pretty innovative, giving every CD buyer at a Section 104 merch table a pass to meet the band personally after their set at an undisclosed location in the Pepsi Center. Oh, and both Swift and Justin Bieber tweeted nice things about the band last week.)