ONE-DAY SALES: NEW DAY DAWNS, AND BOY IS IT BIG

Not when that vocal stylist is Celine Dion, and not when that new album is on track to sell well over 500k in its first week, according to early reports from national accounts!

That’s right: The retirement’s over, Caesar’s is rolling out the red carpet for her, Epic is saluting her, and Dion’s new set, A New Day Has Come, will be a huge #1 on next week’s HITS Top 50 Albums chart.

New Day is Dion’s first studio effort since 1997’s Let’s Talk About Love, which, if you remember, was nothing to sneeze at. Its first week came in at around 334k and was her biggest first week to date. Her All The Way…A Decade of Song greatest-hits compilation sold 302k in its first week in November of 2000.

But this is already blowing those titles away, which means it will upset the Now 9 compilation (UTV), which just made a big #1 bow on sales of over 430k and is expected to maintain that pace the rest of this week.

It also means Dion’s ability to draw a crowd will have the effect of pulling the rest of the market up with her, which is nothing but good news, especially for other albums hitting the street this week. Look for solid debuts from the latest in head-banging wrestling music, WWF: Forceable Entry on Columbia and Avant’s Ecstasy on MCA, both of which should score in the 100k range. The latest in head-banging soundtracks, The Scorpion King on Universal, should also approach 100k—a fine showing, considering the movie won’t hit theaters until mid-April.

To recap: Celine’s back, and she’s bigger than ever. And you thought Canadian hockey was exciting.