Enough BSB Where's Wu-Tang At?

For most artists, moving 1.6 million copies of an album in one week would be cause for celebration.

But the Backstreet Boys aren't most artists.

According to sales figures released by SoundScan on Wednesday, November 29, the Boys will debut at No. 1 on next week's Billboard 200 album chart, after selling more than 1.59 million copies of Black & Blue - an astonishing number by most standards.

However, many looked to the group to surpass fellow teen popsters 'N Sync, who set a one-week record by selling more than 2.4 million copies of No Strings Attached in March. 'N Sync shattered the previous record of 1.13 million, which was set by the Backstreet Boys' Millennium in May 1999.

Black & Blue lands at No. 3 on the list of the biggest one-week sellers, behind No Strings and Eminem's Marshall Mathers LP, which sold more than 1.76 million copies in its first week in stores in May.

While they fell short of the U.S. one-week sales record, the Boys are contenting themselves with global first-week sales of more than 5 million for the album, which the group claims is a record. The group also announced via a press release that the U.S. figures make the Boys the first act in the SoundScan era to score million-plus first-week sales with back-to-back albums.

The arrival of Black & Blue sends The Beatles 1 - the collection of No. 1 Beatles singles that was the previous week's No. 1-selling album - down to No. 2. The compilation Now That's What I Call Music - Vol. 5 also slipped a notch, from No. 2 to No. 3.

Beyond the battle for boy-band supremacy, country star Tim McGraw boasts the week's next-highest debut. McGraw's Greatest Hits sold more than 306,000 copies to arrive at No. 4 on next week's chart.

Nipping at McGraw's heels is the latest from the Wu-Tang Clan. The New York rappers' W sold more than 301,000 copies to debut at No. 5. Releases from Sade, R. Kelly, Outkast, Limp Bizkit, and Ricky Martin round out the top 10.

Soul singer and hip-hop earth mother Erykah Badu cracked the top 20 with her latest, Mama's Gun. Badu sold more than 190,000 copies of the album to debut at 11.

The rest of the top 50 includes debuts from rapper B.G., at No. 21 with Checkmate; new age songstress Enya, at No. 23 with Day Without Rain; hip-hop duo Capone-N-Noreaga, at No. 31 with Reunion; rappers Eightball & MJG, at No. 39 with Space Age 4 Eva; and R&B vocalist Dave Hollister, at No. 49 with Chicago '85 … The Movie.

New releases from Everclear, at No. 66; Nine Inch Nails, at No. 67; Christian star Michael W. Smith, at No. 70; pop legend Elton John, at No. 75; hip-hop-minded Christians DC Talk, at No. 81; and the late Tupac Shakur, at No. 89, help to round out the top 100.