ONE DAY SALES: "A BIGGER BANG" BANGS

Much like the Elvis of yore, The Rolling Stones have been everywhere these past several weeks—and it looks like it’s paying off, since next week’s sales should be all about the Stones... almost. And we say almost only because the mighty Kanye West promises to continue his mightiness next week, with a shoo-in for the #1 spot again.

It looks like Mick, Keef and the other dudes should hit around 150k as of next week with their new Virgin release, A Bigger Bang. That should probably be good enough to put the “boys” in the #2 slot, right behind Professor West’s Late Registration, which, again, should have no problem whatsoever hitting the top spot. And since Kanye recently expressed his support of our current Commander-in-Chief—and since the Stones have done something similar, with their track, “Sweet Neo Con” on the new album—we’re thinking this might prove to be a development that the White House can get strongly behind. (Is a rebirth of the P.R.M.C. waiting in the wings?)

Next week’s only real competition will be a new 50 Cent CD reissue. The new G-Unit/Interscope release will repackage the rapper’s best-selling debut album with several new tracks and a DVD. We’re predicting sales of around 125k—which might be enough for 50 Cent to nab the #2 spot... but it seems unlikely.

The bottom line is that things are still looking slightly better for the biz. The market was up 8.64% from last week, with 10.5 million albums sold, although that reflects a 12.87% drop from the same week last year. The weekly tally is 10.5 million. Year-to-date sales are 375.2 million, which reflects a drop of 8.45%, or 34.6 million, from last year at this point.