WEAK IN PREVIEW:
ASHANTI VS. BEYONCE

As the figures continue to come in, it looks like Ashanti will be battling it out with Beyonce for the #1 position on this week’s Top 50 Albums chart.

All due respect to the lovely and talented Ashanti, of course, but there just ain’t a thing out there to challenge her this week, so two weeks at #1 it may be. As the crunching of numbers continues, it looks like Chapter II (Murder Inc./IDJ) will roll in somewhere around 130k for the week.

Meanwhile, Beyonce's Dangerously In Love continues to hold strong, and is a true contender for the top spot.

The top debuts on the chart will be Thalia’s eponymous English-language debut (Virgin), and Trace Adkins’ Greatest Hits Collection Vol. 1 (Capitol), each of which should come in at around 50k.

Meanwhile, with Chingy’s Jackpot (Priority/Capitol) and the Bad Boys II soundtrack (Universal) leading a pack o’ albums hitting the streets tomorrow, look for a battle to brew between those two titles at the top of next week’s chart. Both will benefit from retail rebate programs, and early-early predictions/forecasts/blind guesses have them selling in or around the 125k-150k zone. We’d equivocate more, but we think you get the idea.

Now where’d we put the end of this story? Oh yeah—it’s right thurr.