ONE-DAY SALES:
ATTACK OF THE KILLER B’s

The big stories coming out of retail in the new-release arena involve Island Def Jam, which is on the way to hitting the trifecta, and Interscope’s Beck, who’s riding a major press onslaught and his accumulated hip cachet to a surprisingly strong first week. And, oh yeah, Shady/Aftermath/Interscope's 50 Cent is a virtual lock to stay at #1 on next week's chart. Whaddaya know, it’s all about UMG once again.

The week’s #1 bow appears to be Def Jam’s Beanie Sigel, who’s on target to do 150k, but Beck is much closer than anyone imagined, as Guero appears to be headed to a first-week total just shy of 150k, even as the album jumps to the top of the iTunes chart. Much of Beck’s momentum is due to press coverage describing the new LP as the long-awaited sequel to his 1996 breakthrough, Odelay, as he reunites with that album’s production team, the Dust Brothers.

Def Jam’s One Twelve should just top its name, with early returns pointing to a total of around 115k. Then comes Interscope’s Will Smith, who’s showing enough strength at the racks to chalk up an 80k finish, challenged by…um…WB Nashville’s Larry the Cable Guy (pardon our ignorance, y’all, but this one snuck up on us).

Along with Beck, the most heartening storyline has to do with Island band The Bravery, which is riding a growing buzz on its vibrant,’80s-rooted sound to a one-week total north of 30k. That’s 4k better than labelmates and stylistic cousins The Killers moved in their debut week. How about that?

In the math department, the music biz was up a heartening 12.6% (1.4 million units) over last week, and 9.6% (1.1m) over the same week of 2004, thanks to consumers peeling for 12.2 million units on the week. The healthy action at retail moved the year-to-date deficits, but the industry will need to string together a bunch of similar weeks to get out of the hole. For the year, sales are down 7.2% (-10.4m units) from 2004 on 145 million units.