Between The Bullets

THE SOUND OF 'MUSIC': With 419,500 units in her album's opening week, Madonna achieves her first No. 1 on The Billboard 200 in more than 10 years. Her "Music" also fetches the biggest measurable sales week in her career, although it is possible that one of her earlier albums did so before SoundScan began measuring sales in 1991.

The bow of this WEA-distributed album ends a 17-week lock that Universal Music and Video Distribution held on the big chart's No. 1 slot, a streak maintained by Eminem (eight weeks), "Now 4" (three weeks), Nelly (five weeks), and last issue's Hot Shot Debut, LL Cool J. And, for good measure, Madonna's splash represents the fourth-largest opening week by a solo female artist since SoundScan began counting pieces, behind Britney Spears, who rang 1.3 million earlier this year; Alanis Morissette (469,000 units, 1998); and Lauryn Hill (423,000 units, also in 1998). Madonna also has the big chart's largest total in 14 weeks.

Madonna's last No. 1 album was "Like A Prayer" in 1989. Since then she's reached the No. 2 slot five times, while two other albums also reached the top 10. Her last runner-up was her previous outing, 1998's "Ray Of Light," which, with first-week sales of 371,000 units, was her best SoundScan tally to date. At the time, that amount also represented the biggest opener by a female solo act. However, it was denied the No. 1 slot by the Hollywood-fed phenomenon that was the "Titanic" soundtrack.

Want more fun Madonna facts? We got 'em in Hot 100 Spotlight and Chart Beat (see pages 81 and 88). Just suffice it to say we're certain Madonna is pleased with her new pair of matching bookends: a No. 1 album, "Music," to go along with her chart-topping title-track single. She certainly worked for the honor. Although pre-release activities were precluded by the birth of her second child, Madonna got busy once the album dropped.

Consider this: Sept. 19, the day the album hit stores, found her attending a well-publicized album-release party, while later that week she made an in-store appearance at Virgin's Sunset Boulevard location in Los Angeles. No one can remember the last time Madonna engaged in either of those promotional endeavors, let alone doing both within four days.

REVOLVING DOOR: Don't look for Madonna, or anyone else for a while, to have a long stay at No. 1. After a somewhat sleepy summer (Retail Track, Billboard, Sept. 30, and Between the Bullets, Billboard, Sept. 16), the lure of Christmas traffic has kicked release schedules into high gear. Thus, Madonna succeeds LL Cool J after his brief one-week stay in the penthouse, while next issue, we expect 98's "Revelation" to be No. 1, albeit with a smaller sum than its enormous shipments would have suggested.

The boy band went out the door with 2.6 million units, the same pre-order that allowed Eminem's "The Marshall Mathers LP" to sell 1.76 million in its first week. Since the start of 1999, only two other albums had larger street shipments: 'N Sync's "No Strings Attached" with 4.2 million and Britney Spears' "Oops! . . . I Did It Again" with 3 million. But unlike the other fat shippers, it appears 98 will fall well shy of a million-plus opening week, as early retail numbers put its first frame closer to the neighborhood of 350,000-400,000 units.

The album's big exposure was caused by accounts ordering the album eagerly, rather than any attempt by the Universal label to jam out aggressive shipments. It also appears that the largest exposure is at mass merchant accounts, rather than at traditional record chains and stores. While first-week sales will seem small compared with "Revelation's" initial shipment, the album stands a chance to sell through cleanly, a process that will be helped by a Disney Channel special that will begin to run Saturday (7).

Figure that rapper Mystikal will come in second next issue, in a closer race than his initial shipment of 1 million copies might have suggested. Early retail numbers indicate his album will start in the range of 275,000-315,000 units.

OVER, UNDER: The improved flow of releases is also reflected in The Billboard 200's new entries, with 16 entering this issue and 23 last issue. There were only five two issues ago, and 10 the issue before. The proudest of this issue's bunch might be Fuel, which bows at No. 17 with 60,000 units. Its previous album peaked at No. 77 and sold 19,000 copies in its biggest sales week. Similarly, the Corrs, now No. 39, set a career high last issue when their latest entered at No. 21. Of two earlier-charting albums, the Corrs' previous peak had been No. 72, earned by last year's "Talk On Corners." Fastball comes in with a higher bow than its first album, entering at No. 97 with 14,500 units, compared with the No. 111 start with 11,000 units that its first one had on the way to a No. 29 peak.

At the same time, veterans George Strait (No. 7, 107,000 albums) and Barbra Streisand (No. 21, 51,000) and rap sophomore Cam'Ron (No. 14, 74,000 units) each fall shy of their previous starts. Strait's last one, a hits package (No. 159), opened at No. 2 with 182,000 copies, while his last conventional album, "Always Never The Same," bowed last year at No. 6 with 122,000 units. Streisand's "A Love Like Ours" opened at No. 6 with 145,000 units, also in 1999. Cam'Ron's first album bowed at No. 6 with 107,000 units in 1998.