OUTKAST BEATS
BUSH, GORE & JAY-Z

It was sooooo close. The bumbling, mentally challenged Texas Governor, whose candidacy was funded by soft money from corporate special interests, against the opportunistic, deceitful lifelong Washington bureaucrat, whose candidacy was funded by soft money from corporate special interests.

And the winner is…LaFace/Arista's Outkast in a squeaker over Roc-A-Fella/IDJ's Jay-Z, with Interscope's U2 providing a formidable third party candidate at #3. Indeed, despite the two nauseating slugs vying to become the most important corporate whore in the world, it really was quite a week.

"Sales this week were explosive due to the anticipation of two of rap's biggest stars releasing albums on the same day," said Wherehouse Music's Violet Brown. "First-day sales were very immediate on Outkast due to video and radio play on ‘Miss Jackson.' Jay-Z appears to be building to his biggest album to date."

And then there's Mike Fuller of Hastings, who took a minute from his sexual fantasies about Hadassah Lieberman to reflect on the strength of the U2 album. "Them sell lots," said Fuller, fodling his Dick Cheney doll.

And while the top three bows were enough to confuse George W. by virtue of there being more than two, they were followed by some other debuts that Junior would find reason to drink to. Check out Republic/Universal's Godsmack at #5, Island/IDJ's Insane Clown Posse at #16 ("Bizaar") and #18 ("Bizzar"—note the cleverly subtle distinction), D3's Snoop Dogg at #21, Island/IDJ's Twiztid at #24 and Island/IDJ's (notice a trend here?) PJ Harvey at #31.

All told, the Universal Music Group proved stronger than the entire Electoral College, scoring five of the Top Six, eight of the Top 13 and 11 of the Top 20, with IDJ alone nailing three of the Top 12 and five of the Top 18.

"Daddy always told me I shouldn't cater to the music industry," said George Dubya.

"Daddy always told me I shouldn't cater to the music industry," said Al Gored.

HITS.... We cater to the music industry.