BRITNEY’S BACK…BITCH

Britney Spears’ Blackout album will debut on next week’s HITS chart at #1. As it is, the beleaguered grown-up teen diva looks on target to sell around 350k, give or take, which ain’t bad at all.

Gimme more indeed. Eat your heart out, Perez Hilton.

For ZLG’s Barry Weiss, next week’s chart will be a treat as he pulls a mean trick, with Jive’s Backstreet Boys joining labelmate Spears by vying for the week’s second-highest debut with a total for their Unbreakable album that could top 100k.

The boys to men will battle it out with WB’s art-metal band Avenged Sevenfold, who will rely on a strong presence at youth lifestyle retailer Hot Topic with their self-titled fourth album to challenge with sales between 90-100k.

MCA Nashville’s Josh Turner is up next as his new album, Everything Is Fine, lives up to its title with a one-week sales estimate of 80k, mas or menos.

Andrea Bocelli’s best of on Decca is in line to sell between 50-60k, but at this time of year, it could go ever higher, though the requisite PBS drive doesn’t start until December.

Thanks to Carrie Underwood, the market was up 5% vs last week, down nearly 17% vs same week last year and now down 14.5% year-to-date. Now that’s scary.