TEENDOM PREVAILS, AS HILARY SLIGHTLY EDGES CAPITOL COMPILATION

It was another battle to the end this week, with Hollywood’s Teen Queen Hilary Duff fighting it out until the bitter end with those various hit songs of Summer compiled on Capitol’s Now That’s What I Call Music #19. But teendom prevailed (as it is often known to do)—and Ms. Duff outpaced Capitol’s Goliath... but just barely. Hilary hit #1 with 96k, while Now took the #2 spot, with 94k.

Island/IDJ’s Mariah Carey maintained the #3 spot yet again, with 87k, while the Black Eyed Peas (A&M/Interscope) enjoyed a slight sales surge, jumping two spots to #4, with 83k. Arista Nashville’s Brad Paisley fell three spots to #5, but he can still wear that darned cowboy hat with pride, selling a healthy (and yee-hah!-inducing) 71k.

Koch’s Jim Jones takes the #5 spot, debuting with 69k. (We promised no Kool-Aid jokes, so we’re going to uphold our promise... although we do have plans to spend a lovely afternoon in Jonestown, once this damn thang gits written...) And Def Jam South/IDJ’s Young Jeezy is back in the Top 10, hitting #7 with 61k (and it’s a damned shame, too, ‘cause we’ve completely exhausted our once seemingly unlimited supply of bad Jeezy jokes...).

RCA/RMG’s Kelly Clarkson dried off from her performance at the MTV Video Music Awards just long enough to rise one spot to #8, with 52k. And speaking of the VMAs. Reprise’s Green Day not only swept the awards... but also saw their American Idiot album rise from #14 to #9, with 52k. Rounding out the chart at the #10 spot is Warner Bros.’ Faith Hill who sold 51k... and still looks mighty purdy.

Other notable debuts: Universal’s Crazy Frog Presents Crazy Hits (OK, we’re not even going there) at #16, with 42k; Curb’s Trick Pony (who either are or aren’t upset about Garfunkel’s latest pot bust) at #26, with 29k; Maverick’s Jack’s Mannequin (um, not going there, either!) at #28, with 28k (wow, how’s that for symmetry?); and 903 Music’s Neal McCoy coming in #35, with 27k.

Watch for huge debuts next week from Kanye West and Tony Yayo, who should have enormous first-day numbers, not to mention first-week numbers. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re outta here. Kid down the street’s set up a mighty nice lookin’ Kool-Aid stand and the air-conditioning in the new HITS office ain’t worth a damn...