It'll hardly cover Puffy's recent legal expenses, but Bad Boy signees vocal group 112 made a strong run towards the top of the charts, selling 182,352 copies of their third album, Part III, during its debut week in stores, according to SoundScan. The group's success is in no small part due to "It's Over Now," the seventh best-selling single of the year thus far. The healthy debut wasn't quite enough to pull Shaggy out of Scans top spot, as his Hotshot scanned 188,838 copies to edge the week's highest debut by a mere 6,486 copies. For Hotshot, the past week was the first in which the album failed to move more than 200,000 copies since the week ending January 16th. Shaggy has been on top a total of six weeks, but unless Hotshot can produce another mega-single to follow "It Wasn't Me" and "Angel," it may finally start to slide.

As for the Atlanta-based foursome 112, they led an onslaught of new releases that continue a run of newcomers into the Top 200. Trick Daddy's Thugs Are Us scanned 116,612 copies for a Number Four debut, and the soundtrack to Exit Wounds, which features new material (including the hit "No Sunshine") from its co-star DMX, landed at Number Eight. A bigger surprise is Jon B. 's Pleasures You Like, which sailed in at Number Six, just missing six-figure sales. The R&B newcomer has done writing and production work for Toni Braxton and others, and released two previous albums, but his major-label debut seemingly arrived out of nowhere to bow in at Number Six.

As for last week's Top Ten, most didn't fare so well. Though Aerosmith's Just Push Play only dropped two slots (from Number Three to Five), Eric Clapton's Reptile fell from Number Five to Seventeen, while Jaheim's Ghetto Love stumbled from Number Nine to Twenty-five. Elsewhere in the Top 100, The Brothers soundtrack, which featured new material from Snoop Dogg, Dave Hollister and others, scored a Number Thirty-two spot. L-Burna's (a.k.a. Layzie Bone's) Thug by Nature (Number Forty-three) and Bizzy Bone's The Gift (Number Forty-four) gave the charts a Bone Thugs-N-Harmony exacta, as their partner in rhyme, Flesh-N-Bone, ponders his next project in the clink. The Beatnuts Take It or Squeeze It came in at Number Fifty-one, Lionel Richie's Renaissance was good for a Number Sixty-two debut and Yolanda Adams' Experience took a Number Sixty-three spot.

Next week, a pair of hip-hop releases are candidates to break into the Top Ten: the Wu-Tang Clan's Cappadonna's The Yin and the Yang, and Until the End of Time, a double-disc posthumous release by 2Pac both hit record store shelves yesterday. Buckcherry's Time Bomb and Shawn Colvin's Whole New You will also be new items for buyers to snatch up, as well as another set of twenty-four Pearl Jam double-live albums, which covers the second leg of the band's U.S. tour last year.

The week's Top Ten: Shaggy's Hotshot (188,838 copies sold); 112's Part III (182,352); the Dave Matthews Band's Everyday (156,270); Trick Daddy's Thugs Are Us (116,612); Aerosmith's Just Push Play (102,375); Jon B.'s Pleasures You Like (99,392); Dido's No Angel (98,314), Exit Wounds soundtrack (91,595); Limp Bizkit 's Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (80,009); and Tank's Force of Nature (70,339).

ANDREW DANSBY
(March 29, 2001)