HEY LADY!

This should heat things up a bit in the selling records biz.

With the Grammy telecast this Sunday, Capitol Nashville’s Lady Antebellum, up for a pair of awards after garnering a Best New Artist nomination last year, will bow at #1 on next week’s HITS Album sales chart with Need You Now. Right now that total looks to be between 375-400k, which, in a word, is HUGE for the country trio featuring Hillary Scott, Dave Haywood and Charles Kelley, whose debut album cracked the mainstream sales chart, the first to do so since Dixie Chicks in 2007.

A tip of the 10-gallon hat to label head Mike Dungan, who’s also responsible for big EMI moneymakers Keith Urban and surprise country star Darius Rucker.

The Hope for Haiti Now album continues to sell through and should remain #2, with a second-week total heading toward 150k.

Capitol/EMI has the week’s other top newcomer in former three-time Grammy nominee Corinne Bailey Rae’s sophomore effort, The Sea, the U.K. singer-songwriter’s first album since the sudden death of her husband two years ago, on target for a debut between 50-55k.

Arista/RMG’s Barry Manilow returns with The Greatest Love Songs of All Time, in the 40-45k range, just in time for that special someone on Valentine’s Day.

Manhattan/EMI’s PBS perennial Celtic Woman looks to be between 30-35k, while the 1,876,456th edition of Razor & Tie’s cottage industry Kidz Bop Kids should do 25-30k.

Sire’s Never Shout Never, the nom de band for midwestern 18-year-old singer/songwriter Christofer Drew, will see its major label debut, What Is Love?, crack the 15-20k sales mark after a series of independently released EPs that gained traction on MySpace.

The market was up 3% vs. last week, down 9% vs. same week last year and now down 6% year to date. And you can soon read all about it on your iPad.