ROSS IS BOSS ON CHARTS

Miami rapper Rick Ross will top next week’s HITS Album Sales chart, with between 150-160k in sales for his third album, Deeper Than Rap, and first for his new Maybach Music Group through Def Jam after a pair for Slip-N-Slide. His last, the gold-certified Trilla, now over 700k, and his 2006 debut, Port of Miami, both debuted at #1.

Up next is Mute’s Depeche Mode with Sounds of the Universe, their first studio effort since 2005’s Playing the Angels, which debuted at #7 with sales of 98k. The band’s initial release for Capitol is looking at sales just a notch below that, between 80-90k, which will have it beating the market and battling with Disney’s holdover Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack for #2.

Just behind those two, and surpassing expectations, is Schoolboy/SRC/Universal Motown’s white-boy rapper Asher Roth, Steve Rifkind’s latest discovery, whose debut Asleep in the Bread Aisle album, which has been #1 at iTunes, is looking at between 70-80k, with the red-hot summer single, “I Love College,” cracking one million downloads this week. Hey, it beats swallowing goldfish.

Other chart newcomers include a pair of indie metal stalwarts in Century Media’s Lacuna Coil (20-25k) and Ferret Music’s Chimaira (15-20k).

Looking at between 9-11k in first-week sales, which should give them Top 50 bows, are Columbia’s Manchester Orchestra and Astralwerks’ Pet Shop Boys, with S-Curve’s Tinted Windows right behind them.

Star Trak/Interscope’s Chester French and Eagle Rock’s Black Label Society will also vie for debuts in the lower portion of the Top 50.

The market was down 19% vs. last week, down 15% vs. same week last year and still down 12% year to date. We now leave you to your sexual fantasies about Susan Boyle and a herd of sheep.