CHART PREVIEW: CHESNEY’S AN ISLAND, WILL OWN #1

If it’s Monday morning, you know that the crack HITS retail crew is busy crunching numbers and analyzing all the data necessary to bring you the kind of early sales information that we like to think serves the same purpose as that whole-grain bran muffin you have with your morning joe. Roughage, people: It keeps a body clean... and pure.

That said, Kenny Chesney’s The Road and the Radio (BNA/RLG), his first “official” release since 2004’s When the Sun Goes Down (that whole Caribbean thing was just a dalliance) is still set to land at #1 on the chart based on first-week sales estimated at shy of 500k. That’s a lot of flaming coco rum balls, or whatever the man drinks while whooping it up in his island paradise.

Chesney’s latest triumph looks like it will have done roughly twice the business of hip-hop sure-shot 50 Cent when the counting’s done, as Fitty’s soundtrack to his big-screen debut, Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (G-Unit/Shady/Aftermath/Interscope) looks just north of 300k in first-week sales, locking up #2 for the week.

Also hitting the chart this week will be Neil Diamond, whose 12 Songs (Columbia) looks like it will come in at around 75k; Floetry’s Flo’ology (Geffen) also appears headed for a 75k first week. Meanwhile, Sheek Louch’s After Taxes (Koch) and Young Buck’s T.I.P. (Mass Appeal) each have a shot at first-week totals of 50k.