ONE-DAY SALES: THREE-WAY DUEL FOR #1 IN THE WORKS?

Bald is beautiful. That’s was retailers are saying as former Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan’s new project, Zwan, takes flight with its debut album, Mary Star of the Sea (Martha’s Music/Reprise), released Tuesday.

According to early reports from national accounts, Zwan is seeing big numbers on both a limited edition DVD version and a standard CD release. Sales of both versions will be combined for one first-week sales figure, which at this point appears likely to fall over 100k.

That gives Zwan a slight, early lead in next week’s chart race. Depending on what happens with a still-hot Norah Jones (whose Blue Note debut, Come Away with Me is in its fourth week at #1) and the exploding Chicago soundtrack (Epic/Sony Music Soundtrax), that race looks likely to turn into a three-way duel.

Grammy fever’s heating up, and Jones’ remarkable sales story to date could easily become more remarkable by week’s end. Chicago, meanwhile, has been seeing huge word-of-mouth gains and big weekend sales, and the movie won’t even be in wide release until next week.

It’s too early to call at this point, but both albums appear to be trending up, and if they do, each could challenge Zwan for #1.

In other news, a HITS musical-theater project, tentatively titled The Zugly Zuckling, has been put on indefinite hold due to lack of audience, lack of funds, and because we rarely follow through on even the worst ideas.