LINKIN PARKS ONE, MAROON’S NEXT

The veteran Warner Bros. rap-rockers will debut at #1 on the next HITS Album sales chart with their fifth studio album, Living Things, which looks headed to an opening week of between 220-240k, according to one-day sales reports from those retailers who haven’t paved paradise and put up a parking lot. It’s the first chart-topper for WEA this year.

That compares favorably with their last album, A Thousand Suns, which debuted in Sept. 2010 with 241k, and went on to sell 845k.

A&M/Octone act Maroon 5 prove the power of television, as lead singer Adam Levine’s stint on The Voice has led to a first-week projection between 190-210k, which would top the debut of the band’s last album, Hands All Over. That one entered the charts with 142k in sales in Sept. 2010, just a week after Linkin Park’s last album, coincidentally enough. The album already has one smash single in “Payphone,” featuring Wiz Khalifa, and boasts plenty more where that came from.

Next highest debut after that will be Maybach Music Group’s MMG Presents, Vol. 2, a WEA-distributed album featuring Rick Ross, Wale, Meek Mill, Stalley and Omarion, is in the 80-90k range.

RCA R&B icon R. Kelly’s Write Me Back will bow with between 70-75k in first-week sales.

Columbia punk vets Offspring’s Days Go By, their first studio album since 2008’s Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace, is on target to sell between 20-25k.

Finally, Madison Gate/Sony Pictures’ The Sing-Off winners and a cappella cover band Pentatonix’s PTX, Vol. 1, should do 15-20k as an iTunes exclusive, where it’s been ensconced in the Top 5 all week