Keith Urban tops The Weeknd in tight race on Billboard chart

By Piya Sinha-Roy LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Australian country singer Keith Urban beat out Canadian The Weeknd in a tight race to No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday. Urban's latest album, "Fuse," sold 98,000 copies in its first week according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan, while The Weeknd's debut studio album "Kiss Land" sold more than 95,000 units, leaving the R&B artist less than 3,000 shy of the top spot. Rapper 2 Chainz landed at No. 3 this week with his latest record "B.O.A.T.S II #METIME," while soul-pop singer Janelle Monae entered the chart at No. 5 with her sophomore album "The Electric Lady," behind Luke Bryan's "Crash My Party" at No. 4. Other debuts in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, which measures weekly album sales, includes British alt-rockers Arctic Monkeys at No. 6 with "AM" and singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow's country-inspired album "Feels Like Home" at No. 7. On the digital songs chart, which measures weekly song downloads, pop singer Miley Cyrus had the top spot with her latest single, "Wrecking Ball," which sold 477,000 copies in the past week, overtaking Katy Perry's "Roar," which dropped to No. 2, and New Zealand indie artist Lorde's "Royals" at No. 3. Album sales for the week ending September 15 totaled 4.5 million copies, down 11 percent from the comparable week in 2012, according to Billboard. (This story was refiled to remove extraneous word from headline) (Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing Eric Kelsey and Bill Trott)