Whatever folks chose to do through the sales week that started with the July 4th holiday, it had nothing to do with record stores. In one of the most uninspiring weeks of music sales in this half-year, sales were down across the board and promising debuts were hard to come by. D12's Devil's Night reclaimed the top spot with sales of 173,956, according to SoundScan, nudging out last week's Number One debut, Alicia Keys' Songs in A Minor by a mere 306 copies.

Aside from the photo finish at the head of the pack, there was little happening. Lil' Romeo's self-titled debut splashed in at Number Six, with modest sales just shy of 100,000. The next highest debut (and the only other debut in the Top 100 is the Wu Chronicles: Chapter II, a musical remora if ever was one.

Although Creed fans didn't come out en masse last week, the 20,000 copies of Human Clay that were snatched up were sufficient to push their breakthrough a little closer to God, as it passed the 10 million units sold mark. Staind's Break the Cycle and O-Town's O-Town also reached sales milestones of 2 million and 1 million albums scanned, respectively.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, this year's sales beg to be placed alongside those of a year ago for a gloomy comparison. Together, the Top Five this time last year sold a quarter million more copies than their counterparts this year -- that's a difference that on its own bests the top album of this week. And the sales figures at this point last year were hardly fresh. Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP nearly topped 300K and the album was seven weeks old. Britney Spears' Oops! . . . I Did It Again moved a quarter million copies and it was nearly three months old.

One cause for sputtering sales might be the absence of a strong presence in the hip-hop field. Two of this summer's more promising entries, the St. Lunatics' Free City and D12's Devil's Night are side projects and the extra baggage that accompanies their respective stars from last summer, Nelly and Eminem, has had a repellent effect. Matters aren't improved by the fact that both Em's Mathers and Nelly's Country Grammar were driven by immensely popular summer singles ("The Real Slim Shady" on the former, "Country Grammar" on the latter), something that D12 and the St. Lunatics haven't managed to find. Further proof . . . "Ride Wit Me" from Country Grammar remains a Top Ten single, while the Lunatics' album has yet to spawn a hit.

There is some hope on the horizon. A high-profile appearance on Santana's Supernatural and tireless touting by Wyclef Jean should ensure steady sales for the Product G&B 's debut album, which arrived in record stores this week, along with Melissa Etheridge's Skin and Tha Liks' "X.O." But 'N Sync's Celebrity isn't exuding the same pre-release starshine as No Strings Attached did more than a year ago. Between the band's choice of touring rather than media saturation and the Jump the Shark aura of the Backstreet Boys' A.J. McLean's recent troubles, the deadeye certainty of the boy band phenom seems destined for a head-scratching hindsight comeuppance.

This week's Top Ten: D12's Devil's Night (173,956 copies sold); Alicia Keys' Songs in A Minor (173,650); Staind's Break the Cycle (154,539); Jagged Edge's Jagged Little Thrill (135,874); Destiny's Child's Survivor (125,285); Lil' Romeo's Lil' Romeo (99,062); the Fast and the Furious soundtrack (95,199); Blink-182 's Take Off Your Pants and Jacket (90,146); the Moulin Rouge soundtrack (90,100); and St. Lunatics' Free City (81,082).

ANDREW DANSBY
(July 10, 2001)