WEEK IN PREVIEW:
PLEASE USHER, DON’T HURT ’EM

As the week opens and the retail sales reports continue to be crunched at HITS’ retail number-crunching HQ, it looks like Usher will again be #1 on the album chart, extending his run to an unbelievable eight weeks.

Indeed, the R&B star’s Confessions (LaFace/ZLG) slipped only 15% last week, moving over 227k (that’s his week seven figure, folks). Figuring around the same rate of decline for this week would mean his sales would dip to 190k or so on the upcoming chart.

That’s still comfortably ahead of the week’s top debut, which looks like it will be Def Jam’s Method Man, whose Tical 0: The Prequel should log first-week sales of 160k by the time the counting’s done. Meth will be followed closesly by New Found Glory’s Catalyst (Drive-Thru/Geffen), which is on track to register a first-week number of 155k.

Meanwhile, Alanis Morissette’s So-Called Chaos (Maverick) is set to hit 100k for its first week, while Montgomery Gentry’s Do Your Own Thing appears headed for a 90k chart debut.

Also about to bow on this week’s chart are Morrissey, whose You Are the Quarry (Attack/Sanctuary) is on track for 50k, and Lenny Kravitz, whose Baptism (Virgin), which could come in at 40k-60k, depending how a heavy schedule of TV appearances through the end of the week helped out.

Tuesday, it’s all about new albums from Avril Lavigne and Slipknot, as Under My Skin (Arista) and Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) (Rodrunner/IDJ) both hit the streets to preliminary first-week predictions of 250-300k each.