THREE-WAY RACE TO
THE FINISH LINE

That’s the word from those retailers around Dubya’s U.S.A. still talking to us based on one-day sales on all three, which appear to be topping 225k apiece. At the moment, Billy Ray Cyrus’ daughter Miley aka Hannah has the early lead, but don’t count out a late run at the roses from either Romance, fresh off a Saturday Nigtht Live appearance and critical kudos, or the Grammy-winning Legend, who is selling strong at Starbucks and has a spate of high-visibility TV appearances this week.

A couple of country-rock icons, Columbia Nashville’s Montgomery Gentry and RCA Nashville’s Alabama, thanks to their QVC appearance, will be battling it out in the 40-50k range.

SoBe Entertainment’s Scott Storch-produced Brooke Hogan rides dad Hulk’s non-stop promotion and her MTV show to a first-week total of 30-40k.

A coupla rappers are next, with Trill Entertainment’s Lil Boosie and Geffen’s Jibbs looking at anywhere between 25-35k for their chart debuts.

Also in the mix are Kiss frontman Paul Stanley’s solo bow on New Door/UMe at 25-30k and Hollywood’s prog-rockers Sparta (15-20k), the other spin-off from At the Drive-In along with Mars Volta.

The market was down more than 2% from last week, down almost 9% vs. same week last year and now down over 5% year-to-date.