POP DIVAS DUEL AS INDUSTRY CREEPS BACK INTO BLACK

Next week’s battle is shaping up as a duel between reigning champ Lady Gaga and Adele for the #1 spot on the HITS Album chart, but the real story is in the details.

For the first time in at least half a decade, sales totals have creeped up in year-over-year comparisons. OK, so it’s only 1%, but that’s a something for those beleaguered music retailers across the country not experiencing more action from Anthony Weiner Tweets than at their cash registers.

So while Gaga and Adele duke it out on top, look for Strange Music’s Tech N9ne to have the top debut for Ron Spaulding’s Fontana with the Kansas City rapper’s best first week ever of between 50-55k for his latest album, All 6's and 7's.

That’s the same total for Interscope Baltimore pop punk band All Time Low’s fourth studio album, Dirty Work.

Former Brooks & Dunn star Ronnie Dunn’s self-titled solo Arista Nashville debut should be right behind that with 45-50k.

Domino U.K. one-time Next Big Things Arctic Monkeys’ fourth album, Suck It and See, looks to be in the 20-25k range.

Finally, Mailboat’s Def Leppard album, a Walmart exclusive, is looking like anywhere from 15-20k.

The market was down 17% vs. last week, up 7% over the same week last year and now, as we said, up 1% year to date. So crack out the champagne bottles and the BlackBerrys and let’s get down to some serious sexting.