The old saying, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" is certainly ringing true for David Bowie.

His first album in a decade, The Next Day, is the fastest-selling album of the year in the U.K. and also his first number-one in his homeland since 1993's Black Tie White Noise. The Next Day sold 94,000 copies its first week in stores there, and it's doing well here in the States, where it is battling Bon Jovi's What About Now for the top spot on Billboard's album chart. Bon Jovi is ahead right now with just under 90,000 copies sold, with Bowie second with somewhere in the neighborhood of 80,000 sold.

Bowie has never had a number-one album in America. His best showing came with 1976's Station to Station, which peaked at number-three.