HOW HIGH WILL CROW FLY?

Last week, Murder Inc./IDJ’s remarkable Ashanti battled for #1 to the very end with Epic’s Celine Dion. This week, the young diva finds herself locked in yet another battle for the top spot—this time with the always-prolific Stuff cover woman (She’s not exactly a girl, is she?) Sheryl Crow.

With Target and Best Buy already reporting stellar numbers on both artists, we expect this one to go down to the very end (That would be Tuesday afternoon, kiddies.) Such usual suspects as Celine, UTV’s Now Vol.9 and Universal’s The Scorpion King will also be hanging around the Top 5 when all the numbers are tallied.

At Top 40, where the men are men, the women are women and the sheep are very nervous, there are signals that both Atlantic’s Brandy and Epic’s J. Lo are vying for Most Added honors—with J.Lo looking to further build her stellar list of early adds from last week. Also look for early action for Columbia’s Marc Anthony with Atlantic’s Craig David and Bad Boy’s P. Diddy scoring solid Top 40 closeout.

At Post Modern, where the sheep may be nervous, but they’re cool, Atlantic’s Audiovent is getting lots of attention, while Chad Kroeger and Josey Scott’s Spider-Man homage remains one of the hottest spins at the format.

There’s also plenty of action at the HITS Crossover, Urban and Mix communities, which comprise our epic new section, "The Block"…but no one wants to interact with those people to find out what’s going on. Thank you for your understanding.