YOUR TOP 15: EMPIRE VS. THE EMPRESS

Yesterday's iTunes outages are affecting the forecasts for next week, with wonderers wondering how many consumers either resorted to physical retail during the store's downtime or simply lost the impulse to buy. In any case, it could still be a battle for #1 as our margin of error today is somewhat greater due to the aformentioned outages. Empire still gets the edge. Here’s what we think headed into the weekend:

1. *Empire Soundtrack (Twentieth Century Fox/Columbia) 110-120k (90-95k sales)
2. *Madonna (Live Nation/Interscope) 110-120k (105-115k sales)
3. *Luke Bryan (Capitol Nashville) 100-110k (90-95k sales)
4. Fifty Shades of Grey (Republic) 65-70k (35-40k sales)
5. Taylor Swift (Big Machine) 65-70k (35-40k sales)
6. Drake (YMCMB/Republic) 50-55k (25-28k sales)
7. Ed Sheeran (Atlantic) 50-55k (25-28k sales)
8. Sam Smith (Capitol) 50-55k (30-35k sales)
9. Maroon 5 (222/Interscope) 40-45k (14-17k sales)
10. Big Sean (G.O.O.D/Def Jam) 35-40k (18-21k sales)
11. Kelly Clarkson (RCA) 35-40k (24-27k sales)
12. Meghan Trainor (Epic) 35-40k (20-23k sales)
13. Nicki Minaj (YMCMB/Republic) 27-30k (9-11k sales)
14. Hozier (Columbia) 27-30k (12-15k sales)
15. Imagine Dragons (KidinaKorner/Interscope) 25-28k (19-22k sales)

*Debuts

If you're jonesing for more Cookie, try this.