WEEK IN PREVIEW: YOU'RE BACK, WE'RE BACK... NOW GET TO WORK

The first official week of every year is traditionally the time to settle in. You know, get the old sea legs back. Try to remember which lies you told to whom before you left for vacation.

That said, with sales experiencing their anticipated post-holiday drop, Wind-Up's Creed and Warner Bros' Linkin Park battle it out for the top spot, with experts claiming they know who will prevail.

But since it's the first official week of the year and no one really knows anything, we don't believe anything they say.

Among the big sales winners over the holiday—and looking strong this week—are Arista's Pink and Epic's Shakira. The latter has pretty much silenced anyone who thought she wasn't the biggest export from Colombia since, well, coffee.

Other albums riding a holiday glow into the first quarter are Def Jam South/IDJ's Ludacris and Murder Inc./Def Jam/IDJ's Ja Rule.

And if that ain't enough to get rid of your post-holiday thoughts of suicide, check out the growth of Interscope's No Doubt and Flawless/Geffen/Interscope's Puddle Of Mudd, which looks like it will have a huge 2002.

Though no smarter in the new year, our Top 40 radio experts are certainly greasier. They say to look for action on new cuts from Britney Spears and Michelle Branch, while the J.Lo/Ja Rule remix continues to roll.

Our Post Modern, JAMZ and Crossover departments are in their offices, but remain on vacation. We hope to derive some useful information from them sometime in the third quarter.

Admit it, you missed us. What's that? HITS. The name of the publication is HITS.