BOYS WILL BE BOSS!!

Yes, folks, the kiddies took daddy and mommy’s rebate check and marched straight into music stores to gobble up NSYNC’s newest offering in near-record numbers. The result—a monster #1 debut with sales just south of 2 million. Any further comment would be merely spewing the painfully obvious. That’s why we recruited Wherehouse Music’s Bob Bell.

"NSYNC is an incredible success story," said Bobby, who also noted there’s a whole bunch of water in the ocean. "Nobody can put a negative spin on this, although somebody probably will."

Looks like the Bobster may have experienced a rare moment of clarity, as industry handicappers with absolutely nothing better to do with their lives are already wondering how severe a second-week drop the band will experience.

But hey, that’s next week. Let’s focus on the NOW, shall we? Oh, that’s next week as well. That’s right, the massively lucrative "NOW" series unleashed "NOW 7" on those compilation-loving consumers today. This time it’s Virgin that will milk the cash cow.

But enough about next week’s "NOW." There’s plenty of other action THIS week. Check out Columbia’s Cake, which made an impressive #7 bow, while Violator/Loud/ Columbia’s "Violator…The Album" posted a #11 debut and Columbia’s (yes, that would be three) Neil Diamond was welcomed back to the album chart with a #18 debut.

Following NSYNC in this week’s Top Five were J’s Alicia Keys (1-2), Flip/Elektra’s Staind (4-3), Shady/Inter-scope’s D12 (3-4) and Warner Bros.’ resurging Linkin Park (8-5).

Next week: The same hype as this week, with different names.