I.B. tease Fri. PM

THE EXPECTATION GAME: In terms of potential comebacks, there’s more than a little pressure surrounding the Q4 releases from Columbia’s Beyoncé, coming off a relatively disappointing sales performance with 2011’s 4 (310k, 1.4m) and RCA’s Britney Spears, who failed to hit a home run with her previous effort, 2011’s Femme Fatale (276k, 777k). Likewise with RCA’s Kings of Leon, whose sales dipped from 2.3m on their 2008 breakthrough Only by the Night (which contained the crossover smash “Use Somebody”) to 730k on 2010’s hitless Come Around Sundown. So says our own I.B. Bad in his latest assessment of the biz. Check it out now and your weekend cocktail-party conversations will be fully covered. (8/2p)