LOOK WHO'S BACK

Rap superstar Eminem, who's been keeping a low profile since his 2002 movie breakthrough 8 Mile and Oscar-winning "Lose Yourself," will release his new album, Encore, on Nov. 16, on Shady/Aftermath/Interscope Records.

It's his first album of all-new material since The Eminem Show, which was released early for the three-day Memorial Day weekend in May, 2002, when it debuted with 300k in sales, then another 1.4 million its first full week on the street. The album has since sold more than 8 million copies in the U.S. The Marshall Mathers LP sold 1.8 million in debut-week sales upon its release in May 2000.

That should make for a very merry Xmas for Interscope and Universal Music Group. Em's three previously solo albums, along with the 8 Mile soundtrack, have sold nearly 19 million copies OTC in the U.S. alone. The new 50 Cent album, the successor to the rapper's multi-platinum Get Rich or Die Tryin', which some had said might come out before the end of the year, has been pushed back until 2005.

And while Eminem has been relatively quiet as a solo artist for the past two years, he has remained active through his Detroit group D12, whose D12 World is still in the Top 30, having sold almost 1.7 million since debuting at #1 last May with 550k in first-week sales.