WEEK IN PREVIEW: MAKE IT FIVE FOR THE USH-MAN

He’s looking more and more like a marathon man. And when you’re as chiseled, ripped and pumped as he is, endurance just ain’t a thang.

We’re talking, of course, about Usher, whose blockbuster ablum Confessions (Laface/ZLG) appears to be headed for a fifth week at the top of the HITS’ Album Chart.

According to early word—as our number-crunchers continue crunching, massaging and all those other unspeakable things people do to data—Usher should go on this week’s chart at #1 with sales for the week of over 250k, meaning his sales will have dipped by only 12% or so compared to the previous week, which is doing pretty well with four weeks already under your belt.

Coming on the chart at #2 should be Bad Boy/Universal’s Mario Winans, whose Hurt No More looks like it will have sold 230k or so once all the counting’s done. Not bad for Winans’ Bad Boy debut.

Following in #3 should be the Now 15 compilation (Capitol) at around 100k. And battling it out for fourth and fifth will be Ghostface’s The Pretty Toney Album (Def Jam) and Hoobastank’s The Reason (Island), which should do over 70k each.

And on Tuesday, look out for Shady/Aftermath/ Interscope’s D12. Early predictions have this monster doing well over 600k in its first week.