THE HIGH AND LOW OF IT

For Disney’s High School Musical 2, it was just another week in the office, the fourth consecutive for the soundtrack, a first for the year, adding another 170k to its million-plus total.

Of course, with today’s release of IDJ’s Kanye West, Shady/Aftermath/Interscope’s 50 Cent and SBMG Nashville’s Kenny Chesney, that will be the end of its streak for the time being, at least.

As for the rest of the HITS Top 50 Albums, it wasn’t exactly a pretty picture, with the lowest total of physical product sales in the modern era.

The only newcomer to the Top 10 is Equal Vision prog-rockers Chiodos, whose RED-distribbed Bone Palace Ballet debuted at #8 with 34k in sales.

The rest of the top of the chart includes Reunion’s Christian phenoms Casting Crowns (#2), A&M/Interscope’s Fergie (#3), Disney’s Hannah Montana 2/Meet Miley Cyrus (#4), New Line’s Hairspray (#5), UTV/UMe’s Now 25 (#6), Roadrunner’s Nickelback (#7) and Universal Republic’s Amy Winehouse (#9).

Jive/ZLG’s Justin Timberlake, moving from #31-10, is the week’s big winner, up 43% thanks to his HBO Labor Day concert special, and sure to continue next week, with his appearance on the MTV VMAs.

The week’s other big gainer is Universal Republic’s Colbie Caillat, whose album Coco is #1 at iTunes and hit single “Bubbly” is starting to cross over from Hot AC and Adult to Top 40, fueling her #30-12, +31% increase.

Other postive moves are registered by WB’s Plies (#22-15, +5%), Interscope’s Timbaland (#35-27, +2%), LaFace/ZLG’s Pink (#47-42, +4%) and Arista/RMG’s Carrie Underwood (#48-43, +3%).

Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds’ RCA live album is also up, #40-22, +19%.

The other Top 50 newcomer is Ferret Records/WMG rockers Every Time I Die (#45), while Island/Mercury Nashville country act Sugarland’s return to the chart at #44 and 20% sales boost is the result of CMT adding the “Stay” video as new SVP Music Strategy Jay Frank polishes up the spittoon in his new office.

Next week, it’s time to for the retail rumble, with Kanye, Fiddy and Kenny battling it out for chart dominance.