Faith Hill
Photo: Warner Bros.

Faith Hill will likely be shedding tears of joy over Cry when next week's Billboard albums chart is published.

The country singer's fifth album and first in three years, Cry will make its chart debut at #1 with more than 472,000 copies sold, according to SoundScan figures released Wednesday (October 23).

LL Cool J will flex his musical muscles at #2 with 10. With a chiseled new physique and a ladies-loving single, "Luv U Better," the 17-year veteran of verse sold more than 154,000 copies of his follow-up to 2000's The G.O.A.T. in its first week in stores.

The two newcomers will oust the Elvis Presley set Elvis 30 #1 Hits from the top slot where the King once reigned for four consecutive weeks. The more-than-a-million seller will drop a deuce to #3. Bon Jovi, meanwhile, got more than a gentle nudge from Hill and LL. The Garden State group's latest, Bounce, will plummet 11 spots to #13 after selling more than 61,000 copies, less than half as many as it did the week before.

Romance rules the back end of the top 10, with soulster Gerald Levert's The G Spot and R&B crooner Dave Hollister's Things in the Game Done Changed setting a smooth mood at #9 and #10, respectively.

Rounding out next week's top 10 are the Rolling Stones' Forty Licks, which will step back to #4; Avril Lavigne extending her 20-week stay in the upper echelon with Let Go's #5 placement; the Dixie Chicks cracking the 2 million mark with former top dog Home remaining at #6; The Eminem Show, the only LP to rival Lavigne's top-10 residency, at #7; and Nelly's Nellyville, dropping three places to #8.

A gracious greeting is allotted to nümetallers Taproot, whose second album, Welcome, will make a surprising chart debut at #17, thanks to the radio and video prominence of "Poem," while the band makes the rounds on the road.

Other notable debuts on next week's chart include the double CD The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac at #12; singer/songwriter Tracy Chapman's Let It Rain at #25; Shine by orchestral dance-pop quartet Bond at #61; Dirty South rappers Da Headbussaz's Dat's How It Happened To 'M at #98; The Best of INXS at #144; and the soundtrack to the movie "Jackass," opening this week, at #195.

• Faith Hill
• LL Cool J
• Elvis Presley
• Dave Hollister
• Dixie Chicks

Dave Matthews
Photo: Brady Wolfe

R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews, Ben Harper and Tracy Chapman will play at this year's Bridge School Benefit, an annual acoustic concert organized by Neil Young, who will perform at the event with his band Crazy Horse.

More artists are expected to be announced for the October 20 and 21 shows at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California. Ticket prices are $45 for reserved seats and $35 for lawn seats; they go on sale Monday at 10 a.m.

Young began staging the Bridge School benefit 15 years ago. Money from ticket sales goes to the Bridge School, a facility that helps physically disabled children. The school was co-founded in 1986 by Young's wife Pegi, and, Jim Forderer, both of whom have children with speech and physical disabilities.

Last year's benefit featured Young, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beck, the Dave Matthews Band, Foo Fighters, Tegan and Sara, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young as well as a surprise appearance by Robin Williams.

It appears likely that Young and Crazy Horse will perform new songs slated for an upcoming record, Young's management said. Early this summer, Young entered a San Francisco studio with Crazy Horse to work on new material, a Warner Bros. spokesperson said. He played a number of those tunes on his recent European tour, which ended July 28.

Track titles include "Don't Say You Love Me," "Gateway to Love," "Hold You in My Arms," "Going Home" and "Standing in the Light of Love," according to his management office, who said the still-untitled record will be out next year.

• Dave Matthews Band
• Dave Matthews
• R.E.M.
• Pearl Jam
• Ben Harper

Tickets for this year's Tibetan Freedom Concert featuring Beck, the Beastie Boys, Blues Traveler, A Tribe Called Quest, Radiohead, the Verve, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., and many others will go on sale Saturday, May 2.

Tickets for the two day affair, set for June 13 and 14 at Washington, D.C.'s RFK Stadium, are priced at $29.50 per day, or $55 for both days. Tickets will be available at the RFK box office, Ticketmaster outlets, or through Charge-By-Phone at 1-800-551- SEAT. There is a four ticket limit per customer.

As we previously reported, the two-day concert will also feature turns by the Dave Matthews Band, Pulp, Sonic Youth, Wyclef Jean, Patti Smith, Sean Lennon, Buffalo Daughter, KRS-One, Tracy Chapman, Live, Luscious Jackson, and others.

• Beck
• Beastie Boys
• Blues Traveler
• A Tribe Called Quest
• Radiohead

May 1 [13:30 EST] -- Sheryl Crow, Joan Osborne, and Tracy Chapman have been added to Lilith Fair tour line-up that already includes Jewel, the Cardigans, Fiona Apple, Paula Cole and many others.

The all-female Lilith Fair, the brainchild of singer Sarah McLachlan, boasts one of the stronger line-ups in a summer awash in festival package tours. In addition to Crow, Osborne, Chapman, Jewel, Apple, Cole, and the Cardigans, the concert will also feature Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter, the Indigo Girls, Emmylou Harris, Suzanne Vega, and McLachlan herself.

According to the Lilith Fair website (at www.lilithfair.com), tickets for the tour's opening date at The Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Washington go on sale this Saturday.

Here are the dates that McLachlan and the Lilith Fair camp have confirmed so far (a complete itinerary is not yet available):

• 7/5 - George, WA @ The Gorge Amphitheatre
• 7/6 - Salem, OR @ L.B. Day Amphitheatre
• 7/8 - Mountain View, CA @ Shoreline Amphitheatre
• 7/9 - Irvine, CA @ Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre
• 7/12 - Winter Park, CO @ Winter Park Music Fest
• 7/17 - Cuyahoga Falls, OH @ Blossom
• 7/18 - Clarkston, MI @ Pine Knob
• 7/19 - Clarkston, MI @ Pine Knob
• 7/20 - Canandaigua, NY @ Finger Lake Performing Arts Centre
• 7/24 - Hartford, CT @ Meadows Music Theatre
• 7/25 - Wantaugh, NY @ Jones Beach Amphitheatre
• 7/26 - Holmdel, NJ @ PNC Bank Arts Centre
• 7/29 - Columbia, MD @ Merriweather Post
• 8/1 - Atlanta, GA @ Lakewood
• 8/4 - Dallas, TX @ Starplex
• 8/7 - Cincinnati, OH @ Riverbend
• 8/8 - Noblesville, IN @ Deer Creek
• 8/10 - Columbus, OH @ Polaris
• 8/12 - Burgettstown, PA @ Starlake
• 8/13 - Scranton, PA @ Montage Mountain

• Tracy Chapman
• Sheryl Crow
• Sarah McLachlan
• The Cardigans

JOHN: The night before the Howard Stern premiere party, Madison Square Garden played host to a more subdued gala: the 39th Annual Grammy Awards. It was quite a night for Beck, Babyface, the Fugees and Toni Braxton, among others, while the Smashing Pumpkins and No Doubt were both rather disappointed. Kurt Loder has the whole story.

KURT LODER: Grammy monstrous Celion Dion doesn't actually do anything by herself, of course. It took a dozen producers to put her hit album together, so many, the singer was cut off before she could praise them all.

CELINE DION: (at podium with Grammy) I'd like to thank all the writers, and the producers, and the musicians, and... (orchestra begins to cut her off).

LODER: Smashing Pumpkins resurrecting that old "hullabaloo" go- go spirit from the 1960's in their performance of "1979", wound up winning in only one of the seven categories in which they were nominated.

BILLY CORGAN: Yeah, good luck on your award Kurt.

LODER: Touchy, touchy. In fact all of the big album of the year nominees went home clutching at least one Grammy of some sort.

TABITHA SOREN: Did you feel disappointed that you didn't win best album of the year?

BECK: I was satisfied with two, I would say, but...

SOREN: You only got two hands.

BECK: I was ready to jump up onto Sting's lap, I was ready to jump on his ass.

SOREN: I'm sure he would let you do that anyway.

LODER: Despite all the multi nominations for certain acts, in the end, no one performer dominated this year's Grammys, certainly no one surprising. With little suspense in the awards themselves, it was left to the Grammy performers to pump up some excitement, and the most seasoned pro's among them definitely delivered.

BABYFACE: That almost brought tears to my eyes. I was going like this (blinking eyes).

LODER: Not so lucky were the chart ruling, ska popsters, No Doubt, foiled in their bid for the best new artist Grammy by upstart country kid, Leann Rimes.

JOHN NORRIS: (holding up fake Grammy) Do you want this one?

GWEN STEFANI, No Doubt: Oh, can we have that one?

JOHN NORRIS: No problem. We're about to tear down the set anyway.

STEFANI: Only for our parents, you know. I won't tell my grandma that we lost, I'll just be like, "Grandma look" (holding up fake Grammy).

JOHN: A few other winners of note: Rage Against The Machine's "Tire Me" for best metal performance, LL Cool J's "Hey Lover" for best rap solo, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony's "Crossroads" for best rap group performance, Toni Braxton for best female vocal in both the pop and r&b categories, and Hillary Clinton for best spoken word recording.

Babyface, by the way, has reportedly been approached by the Rolling Stones, of all people, to do some work on their next album. The Stones are also said to be talking with Beck's producers, The Dust Brothers. In fact, we'll have a closer look at the Dust Brothers later in our show.

For more Grammy news, check out the MTV News Grammy Archive.

• Sheryl Crow
• Beck
• The Smashing Pumpkins
• Tracy Chapman

Feb. 26 [20:45 EST] -- The Grammy surprises started even before the telecast hit the airwaves, as the mellow sway of Tracy Chapman's "Give Me One Reason" beat out entries from Garbage, the Wallflowers, and Oasis for "Best Rock Song."

Chapman picked up the statuette in one of the pre-ceremony awards, and thwarted Garbage's "Stupid Girl" and Oasis's seemingly inescapable "Wonderwall."

John Hiatt's "Cry Love" and "Too Much" from the Dave Matthews Band also got the short end of the stick in the "Best Rock Song" race.

Elsewhere, Sheryl Crow's self-titled second album beat out white hot No Doubt and the Dave Matthews Band among others for "Best Rock Album."

Crow faced stiff competition from No Doubt's "Tragic Kingdom," Matthews' "Crash," Bonnie Raitt's "Road Tested," and Neil Young and Crazy Horse's "Broken Arrow."

Speaking of white hot, the Beatles' "Free As A Bird" clip edged Smashing Pumpkins' "Tonight, Tonight," Alanis Morissette's "Ironic," Michael Jackson's "Earth Song," and Green Day's "Walking Contradiction" for "Best Music Video, Short Form."

The Beatles haven't actually filmed a video in well over 25 years.

For more Grammy news, check out the MTV News Grammy Archive.

• Tracy Chapman
• Sheryl Crow