AGE BEFORE BEAUTY

As the year draws to a close, and the hitsdailydouble office empties like someone yelled, “Free drinks outside!,” the Beatles—a popular rock band of the mid-1900s—hold on to the #1 spot on our last album sales chart of the year. The Fab Four sold just north of 800k of the greatest hits set. Those folks at Capitol would be mighty proud, but they've all left for the year.

Sitting just behind them are Jive's Backstreet Boys, moving right about 550k. Oh wait, exactly 550k. Then it's Columbia's “Now Vol. 5” and Wind-Up's Creed. No surprises there. In fact, we're so confident in the sales chart that this story was written almost a week in advance. Fellow Jiver Britney Spears rounds out the Top 5. MCA's Shaggy continues to climb, hitting #6 this week.

The top debut of the week is Loud's Xzibit, who moved just more than 200k, which puts him at #13. The big debut comes from those happy-go-lucky guys in Tool, selling 112k of its CD and DVD set (or CD and VHS). The Volcano package, featuring live and unreleased songs and all of the group's videos, ends up at #32.

Now if you'll excuse us, someone just yelled, “Free drinks in Lenny's office!”