It's doubtful that when Santana's Supernatural was released on Arista Records four months ago even label chief Clive Davis, not known as a man to shy away from over-the-top promotion, would have been bold enough to predict the album would one day flirt with No. 1.| After all, commercially, bandleader Carlos Santana has been AWOL for the last decade, with the group's last No. 1 album coming twenty-eight years ago during the fall of '71.

Yet according to SoundScan, for the week ending Oct. 10, Supernatural came this close to capturing No. 1, selling 164,000. The album, sprinkled with guest appearances from Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean, Dave Matthews, Eric Clapton, and others, came in No. 2 behind Creed's two-week-old release, Human Clay, which sold 190,000 copies. Can Santana finally make the move to No. 1 next week? Perhaps, although new releases by 311, Alan Jackson, Eric Clapton and Alice in Chains could be serious contenders for the top slot.

Also making noise inside the week's top ten were Live, whose latest, Distance to Here, came in at No. 4. Other debuts of note included Melissa Etheridges's Breakdown (at No. 12), the Wu-Tang Clan member Inspectah Deck's Controlled Substance (No. 19), and Paul McCartney's roots rock album, Run Devil Run (No. 27). David Bowie's Hours... came in soft at No. 47, despite the fact the singer was featured on the season premiere of Saturday Night Live, usually a sure-fire way to boost sales.

Meanwhile, sales of Garth Brook's ...In the Life of Chris Gaines fell by fifty percent its second week in stores. That's not good for several reasons: First, there are still three million copies of the album clogging up store shelves, which could mean a nightmare's worth of returns for Capitol Nashville. Secondly, because country albums sell so well at mass merchants such as Wal-Mart and K-Mart, which often report later to SoundScan, country titles usually enjoy solid second-week sale results before a large drop-off occurs. No such luck for Brooks this time around.

From the top, it was Creed's Human Clay (selling 190,000); followed by Santana's Supernatural (164,000); the Backstreet Boys' Millennium (146,000); Live's Distance to Here (138,000); Garth Brook's ...In the Life of Chris Gaines (133,000); Method Man and Redman's Blackout (129,000); Britney Spears' ...Baby One More Time (124,000); Christina Aguilera's Christina Aguilera (120,000); Lou Bega's Little Bit of Mambo (118,000); Kid Rock's Devil Without a Cause (109,000).

ERIC BOEHLERT
(October 13, 1999)