BACKSTREET BOYS HIT THE STREET, STREET HITS BACK

The Backstreet Boys' eagerly anticipated Jive "Black & Blue" album hit retail stores today, with exit polls indicating it's still too early to tell if they will shatter NSYNC's first-week sales record of 2.4 million, set last March.

There were riots on Times Square in New York when the Boys led a contingent of media and fans from a press conference across Broadway to the Virgin Megastore to check on sales, with widespread looting and damage the result (see HITS Rumor Mill).

Backstreet Boys' last album, '99's "Millennium," sold 1.1 million copies its first week on the way to a total of 11.3 million OTC. NSYNC's "No Strings Attached" is currently at 8.7 million sold.

Meanwhile, the result of midnight and first-day sales was relatively inconclusive, with mass merchandisers reporting better numbers than individual retailers. Watchers are still waiting for Wal-Mart's massive promotion to kick in this week to better assess the results. The count, of course, continues in Palm Beach and Broward County, with no end in sight.

In other news, George W. Bush's daughter reportedly bought two copies of the new Backstreet Boys record, while Al Gore's daughters are each re-stocking on Limp Bizkit and Insane Clown Posse albums to give to Tipper for Xmas. And somewhere in Delray Beach, a passel of blue-haired biddies are rocking out to Pat Buchanan's Greatest Hits collection, "The Wind Beneath My Right Wing."