ONE-DAY SALES: DMX IS CHAMP

It’s that time of year. The sun’s a little lower in the sky, temperatures get a little cooler, and the industry's thoughts turn to cash registers ringing in the fourth quarter.

We ain’t there yet, but this week’s a good warm-up for the peak selling season, with a couple of titles set to enter at the top of next week’s album chart.

Def Jam/IDJ rapper DMX is back, with his new set, Grand Champ looking like it will sell around 325k in its first week, according to early reports from national accounts. That number could get bigger, depending on the degree of action at independent outlets.

Meanwhile, Virgin’s A Perfect Circle should see their latest, Thirteenth Step, sell 225k-250k for the week.

Erykah Badu’s new effort, Worldwide Underground (Motown), appears likely to come in at around 150k.

Three additional titles should move on the order of 100k each for the week: Island/IDJ’s Thursday (War All the Time), Beat Club/Interscope’s Bubba Sparxxx (Deliverance) and Universal’s Sheek Louch (Walk Wit Me). Of the three, Bubba Sparxxx appears likeliest to reach the 100k mark at this point.

With this week’s #1 album, John Mayer’s Heavier Things (Aware/Columbia) projected to fall by about half, DMX and A Perfect Circle should easily claim #1 and #2, respectively, on next week’s chart. Mayer and Badu, meanwhile, may duke it out for #3.

Storm warning: Retailers throughout the southeast are expecting Hurricaine Isabel to “dampen” sales trends this week. Har har har. Seriously, we hope no one gets hurt and damage is minimized, but that’s just the kind of first-grade pun we can’t resist.