CHART PREVIEW: PRE-HALLOWEEN SALES A FRIGHT!

Okay, it’s Halloween, so is everyone ready to get spooked? Here it comes: As the HITS retail ghouls and goblins continue to search for eye of newt to top off the burbling sales brew that is this week’s album chart, the ancient portent of last week’s one-day story holds true: This week’s chart is a ghost story of sorts, with no new release reaching the 100k mark...

Trick or treat!!!

In fact, one new release will actually do six figures, despite what we've been telling you up to now. That would be Destiny's Child’s #1’s (Sony Urban/Columbia), which now looks good for 110k-120k following a better-than-expected weekend. That total should be enough to top Nickelback, whose All the Right Reasons (Roadrunner/IDJ) has seen its sales taper more gradually than most and will stay north of 100k. The opposite is true of last week’s #1, Ashlee Simpson’s I Am Me (Geffen), which appears to be headed for just 75k-80k after a solid 220k bow.

Those albums hitting the chart this week with a bit less than a bang include Joe Nichols’ III (Universal South) at 55k-60k; Bette Midler’s Bette Midler Sings the Peggy Lee Songbook (Columbia) at 40k-45k; the Johnny Cash retrospective The Legend of… (Hip-O/UMe) at about 40k; Aerosmith’s Rockin’ the Joint: Live at the Hard Rock (Columbia) at 35k-40k; and NSYNC’s Greatest Hits (Jive/ZLG) at around 20k.

All in all, then, despite Destiny's Child's last-minute heroics (a la UCLA), this is still a pathetic way to end the first third of the fourth quarter. Double, double, toil and trouble, indeed.

There’s the trick. Now maybe the treat will come next week, when tomorrow’s batch of releases, including veteran top sellers Blink-182, the Now franchise, Slipknot and Santana, have their day on the chart.