Vanessa Hudgens
Photo: Mike Flokis/ Getty Images

All the bad publicity generated by the photos of "High School Musical 2" star Vanessa Hudgens that leaked on the Internet last week didn't hurt sales of the made-for-TV movie's soundtrack in the least, but interest in the LP did taper off a tad. Nevertheless, the "High School Musical 2" remains in the #1 spot on next week's Billboard albums sales chart, becoming the year's first album to spend four weeks at the top 200's apex.

To be fair, "HSM2" didn't face much competition during its fourth week of commercial release — but is expected to take a bona fide beating this week from the likes of Kanye West, 50 Cent and Kenny Chesney (see "50 Cent And Kanye West: The Main Event Is Finally Here, In New Releases"). Sure, sales dropped 22 percent — which, really, is to be expected — to 164,700, pushing total sales past 1.3 million. But there was no true threat to the soundtrack's run at #1; the chart's #2 finisher, Fergie's The Dutchess, sold just 48,600 copies, according to the latest SoundScan figures.

Overall album sales also dwindled, from 2.4 million during the previous week to 2 million-plus this week, giving lesser-known acts like Michigan post-hardcore collective Chiodos a strong shot at a top 10 opener. The band's latest, Bone Palace Ballet, sold close to 38,700 copies and debuts at #5. The disc was the only new release to crack the top 10, and becomes the best-selling and highest-charting bow of the band's career. In fact, Chiodos' previous offering, 2005's All's Well That Ends Well, didn't even chart the week after its release.

The rest of the top 10 is rounded out by the usual suspects: Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus climbs one spot to #3 with 47,000 sold, while Casting Crowns' The Altar and the Door falls two spots to #4, selling 40,500 copies. The soundtrack to "Hairspray" holds at #6 with 38,700 scans, followed at #7 by the 25th installment in the Now That's What I Call Music! compilation series, with 37,900 in reported sales. Nickelback's All the Right Reasons finishes at #8, with 36,200 scans, and Amy Winehouse's Back to Black sold more than 28,900 units to claim the chart's #9 slot. And coming in at #10 is Linkin Park's Minutes to Midnight, with 28,400 copies snatched up.

Metal foursome Every Time I Die's The Big Dirty is also among the eight new releases that'll make their debut on next week's chart. The disc sold 13,800-plus copies, to open at #41. Meanwhile, Christian act Israel & New Breed's A Deeper Level follows at #48, with sales of more than 11,700 units. Manu Chao's La Radiolina bows at #71, having sold more than 8,300 copies, while Patti Scialfa's Play It as It Lays finishes in the #90 position, with 6,800 scans. Saviour King, the sixteenth live album from Christian act Hillsong, follows at #114 with 5,300 sold, and Ice Cube's In the Movies lands at #169, selling 4,000 copies. Lastly, Ted Nugent's newest, Love Grenade, debuts at #186, with more than 3,600 scans.

• Fergie
• Chiodos
• Nickelback
• Amy Winehouse
• Linkin Park

Every Time I Die's <i>The Big Dirty</i>
Photo: Ferret Records

Well, artists must have been planning their year around the VMAs, because while August was bristling with new releases and September 11 is going to pack an epic punch, this week is wicked slow. Here's what we're looking at:

Metal Overload: Every Time I Die spent their summer greasing fans for their next album on the Sounds of the Underground Tour, and now it's finally time to deliver the sucker. Following 2005's critically approved Gutter Phenomenon, ETID aim for even loftier heights on The Big Dirty: One track, "Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Battery," is incredulously based on Federico Fellini's "8 1/2." Other cuts, like "Inrihab" and "Depressionista," continue the band's tradition of wacky song titles — though "Rendez-Voodoo" and "Rebel Without Applause" could use some work.

While ETID were on SOTU, Chiodos did the whole Warped Tour deal, delivering their brand of Detroit post-hardcore to the masses. A lot of kids scooped up the band's 2005 debut, All's Well That Ends Well — it has sold more than 160,000 copies — and now the group is hoping for some repeat success with its second effort. While ETID are channeling Fellini, Chiodos have a muse of their own in boozy author Charles Bukowski, whose "Bone Palace Ballet" serves as the title of the band's disc. And try this little nugget of Fall Out Boy-esque trivia on for size: The song "I Didn't Say I Was Powerful, I Said I Was a Wizard" was originally called "A Final Opinion Is of Less Value Than an Appreciation and Tolerance for Obscurity."

If you want to take it a notch heavier, look no further than Bam Margera Presents: Viva la Bands, Volume Two, which is littered with repeat death-metal offenders In Flames, Gwar, Children of Bodom and more. And if you're a Margera fan, Christmas is coming early: The release's DVD component features roughly an hour of Bam footage that is seeing the light of day for the first time.

Last but not least, Megadeth are also storming the metal front this week. The band's recent "That One Night: Live in Buenos Aires" DVD made such a big splash that it has converted the concert into CD form too. The double-disc has three slices from the October 9, 2005, show in Argentina that were not featured in the video package: "Skin of My Teeth," "Die Dead Enough" and "Angry Again."

To the T: London singer/songwriter Jamie T — who's only 21 — has already proven himself back home, outdoing Thom Yorke and Jarvis Cocker for Best Solo Artist at the NME Awards, and he made a bit of a stir Stateside earlier this year at SXSW. Now it's time for him to finally drop his aptly titled Panic Prevention — he suffered from panic attacks as a kid — in the U.S. He's already broken out three singles from the disc: "Sheila," "If You Got the Money" and "Calm Down Dearest."

Digital Underground: The record racks aren't popping too much this week, but there's a bit of activity in the digital ether. Long-running San Francisco string quartet Kronos Quartet — who have previously tackled Philip Glass and Bill Evans, among others — quiet down for Kronos Quartet Plays Sigur Rós. And French ambient act M83 are making sure their Digital Shades Vol. 1 lives up to its name by issuing digitally the first chapter in the unreleased-material series.

Song Title of the Week:

"If I Cut My Hair, Hawaii Will Sink" from Chiodos' Bone Palace Ballet

Album Cover of the Week:

Chiodos' Bone Palace Ballet

Other Notables:

Heavy Trash's Going Way Out With Heavy Trash

When all else fails, there is always Jon Spencer. The Blues (Explosion) brother has ground out another album with onetime Madder Rose bassist Matt Verta Ray. They've tapped some unlikely influences for the affair — in a press release, Spencer said the album salutes everyone from underground acts like the Gories and Doo Rag to Waylon Jennings and Charlie Feathers. But the closing track, "You Can't Win," might have the best foundation: "Partially inspired by post-9/11 paranoia, partially inspired by Greil Marcus' 'The Shape of Things to Come,' and partially inspired by the book 'You Can't Win,' by Jack Black (the hobo, not the funnyman)."

Nurses' Hangin' Nothin' but Our Hands Down

They're up against experimental British act Nurse With Wound, but Nurses think they have the best medicine for music lovers this week with an LP that calls to mind Modest Mouse and Blood Brothers. A nonsensical entry posted on the Chicago band's MySpace page essentially reflects what they're all about: "A few years ago, [the bandmembers] promised each other to become this rock band, write great songs and make as much as possible, and do not deviate from this plan, even though their home state of Idaho had noo shortage of new rok-geroev." If you want to be even more thoroughly confused, look no further than brittle songs like "And Now the Curse of Marjorie" and "Lots of Brass."

Ferraby Lionheart's Catch the Brass Ring

What's a pizza-delivery guy to do in his spare time? Well, write songs, of course. Singer/songwriter Ferraby Lionheart did just that, filtering his love of Prince and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" into his computer in the form of late-night compositions. The Ballad of Ferraby Lionheart features "The Octopus and the Ambulance," "Youngest Frankenstein" and "Put Me in Your Play."

New Releases:

· Jay Azzolina - Local Dialect (Garagista)
· Joshua Bell - Red Violin Concerto (Sony Classics)
· Birgit - True Stories I Made Up (Zip)
· Suzy Bogguss - Sweet Danger (Loyal Dutchess)
· Manu Chao - La Radiolina (Nacional/Because) [Buy Now]
· Chiodos - Bone Palace Ballet (Equal Vision) [Buy Now]
· Clare & the Reasons - The Movie (Frog Stand)
· The Coathangers - The Coathangers (Rob's House)
· Lars Danielsson & Leszek Mozdzer - Pasodoble (Act Music + Vision)
· EleventySeven - Galactic Conquest (Reunion)
· Every Time I Die - The Big Dirty (Ferret) [Buy Now]
· Ferraby Lionheart - Catch the Brass Ring (Nettwerk)
· The Flatliners - The Great Awake (Fat Wreck Chords)
· Marla Hansen - Wedding Day (Standard Recording)
· Calvin Harris - I Created Disco (Almost Gold)
· Heavy Trash - Going Way Out With Heavy Trash (Yep Roc)
· The Holloways - So This Is Great Britain? (enhanced; TVT)
· Jamie T - Panic Prevention (Caroline)
· Just Jack - Overtones (enhanced; TVT)
· Will Kimbrough - (EP) (Thirty Tigers)
· Kosmos - Kosmos (The End) [Buy Now]
· Mancino - Manners Matter (Mancino Music) [Buy Now]
· Megadeth - That One Night: Live in Buenos Aires (two CDs; Image) [Buy Now]
· New Model Army - High (Attack Attack)
· Ted Nugent - Love Grenade (Eagle)
· Nurses - Hangin' Nothin' but Our Hands Down (Sargent House)
· Panacea - The Scenic Route (Rawkus)
· The Perishers - Victorious (Nettwerk)
· Chris & Rich Robinson - Brothers of a Feather: Live at the Roxy (Eagle Rock)
· Kendra Ross - New Voice (Lola's Child)
· Patti Scialfa - Play It as It Lays (Columbia)
· Michelle Shocked - To Heaven U Ride (Mighty Sound)
· Various artists - Bam Margera Presents: Viva la Bands, Volume Two (with DVD; Ferret)

Notable Reissues and Archival Material:

· Ice Cube - In the Movies (Capitol/Priority) [Buy Now]
· Jars of Clay - The Essential Jars of Clay (two CDs; Essential/Legacy) [Buy Now]
· Nurse With Wound - Homotopy to Marie (Jnana)
· Pink Floyd - The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (limited-edition three-CD reissue; Capitol) [Buy Now]
· Yes - Live at Montreux 2003 (two CDs; Eagle Rock) [Buy Now]
· Townes Van Zandt - Be Here to Love Me and For the Sake of the Song (Fat Possum)

Music DVDs:

· Dave Brubeck - "Jazz Icons" (Reelin' in the Years/ Naxos)
· John Coltrane - "Jazz Icons" (Reelin' in the Years/ Naxos)
· Duke Ellington - "Jazz Icons" (Reelin' in the Years/ Naxos) [Buy Now]
· Dexter Gordon - "Jazz Icons" (Reelin' in the Years/ Naxos)
· Isaac Hayes - "Live at Montreux 2005" (Eagle Rock)
· Charles Mingus - "Jazz Icons" (Reelin' in the Years/ Naxos)
· Wes Montgomery - "Jazz Icons" (Reelin' in the Years/ Naxos)
· Chris & Rich Robinson - "Brothers of a Feather: Live at the Roxy" (with CD; Eagle Eye)
· Sarah Vaughan - "Jazz Icons" (Reelin' in the Years/ Naxos)
· Various artists - "The British Beat Live!: Best of the '60s" (Shout! Factory)
· Various artists - "Improvisation" (two DVDs; Eagle Eye)
· Various artists - "Shakespeare Was a George Jones Fan: Cowboy Jack Clement's Home Movies" (Shout! Factory)

Digital Releases:

· Karmina - The Kiss (EP; CBS) [Buy Now]
· Kronos Quartet - Kronos Quartet Plays Sigur Rós (Nonesuch) [Buy Now]
· M83 - Digital Shades Vol. 1 (Mute) [Buy Now]
· The Milwaukees - American Anthems, Vol. 1 (City Desk) [Buy Now]
· Rhythm King and Her Friends - The Front of Luxury (Kitty-Yo)
· Sons of William - What Hides Inside (Red Lick)

Coming Attractions:

September 11:
· 50 Cent - Curtis (G-Unit/Interscope) [Preorder]
Read: "50 Cent Album Preview: Eminem, Dr. Dre Help Curtis 'Keep It Funky' "
· Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam (Domino) [Preorder]
· Hot Hot Heat - Happiness Ltd. (Reprise) [Preorder]
· Kenna - Make Sure They See My Face (Interscope) [Preorder]
· Kanye West - Graduation (Roc-A-Fella) [Preorder]
Read: "Kanye's Graduation: Inside The NYC Listening Party For West's So-Called 'Comeback' "

September 18:
· Chamillionaire - Ultimate Victory (Motown) [Preorder]
Read: "Chamillionaire Ditches Bad Attitude; Hooks Up With Snoop, Busta For LP"
· Mya - Liberation (Motown) [Preorder]
Read: "Mya Gives Up Grudges And Ego, Picks Up Relationship Wisdom On Liberation"
· KT Tunstall - Drastic Fantastic (Virgin)

September 25:
· Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (RCA) [Preorder]
· PJ Harvey - White Chalk (Island)
· Hell Rell - For the Hell of It (Koch) [Preorder]

• Every Time I Die
• Chiodos
• Megadeth
• Jamie T.
• Manu Chao

Chiodos
Photo: Dave Hill/ Equal Vision Records

If you're ever in some dingy watering hole and a lad wearing a panda costume walks in and sits down at the bar, don't be alarmed. He might not be just some wacko, and he might not pose any kind of real threat. In fact, there's a good chance he's just a bored member of post-hardcore six-piece Chiodos, trying to abolish the ennui that comes with life on the road.

"Every single day something ridiculous happens out here," frontman Craig Owens explained. "We'll dress someone up to go to a bar in a panda suit, and we're always playing jokes on the other bands we're on tour with. We try to have as much fun as possible on the road, and that's hard, because we're bored almost all of the time. But boredom can bring out creativity. It opens up your mind, I think."

With the Everett, Washington, launch of the 2007 installment of the Taste of Chaos Tour just a month and change away — it kicks off February 15 and runs through April 8 in Vancouver, British Columbia — the Davison, Michigan, outfit's going to have a great deal of time on its hands these next few months. And while that means the panda suit may very well be making appearances in bars all across the country this spring, Owens is looking forward to some of the more tedious aspects of being a road dog. He's hoping the time on the road will help shape the band's forthcoming LP, which it hopes to have out in the fall.

Chiodos have written about five songs for the effort and plan to keep writing through Taste of Chaos. They'll be touring in a bus fitted with recording equipment so they can take care of the preproduction in between Chaos dates. Once the tour's over, Chiodos will hit the studio to track the outing, which is the follow-up to 2005's All's Well That Ends Well. The latter LP, an expanded version of which was issued in October, has sold 112,300 copies in the U.S.

But Owens — who is also a member of the Sound of Animals Fighting — said his band still doesn't know who it will ask to produce the yet-untitled record. "We want someone who gets us and is going to push us to make the best record we can," he said. "Our band is very progressive, and whoever produces this next album will have to want to understand us, and they'll have to see us live. Anyone who will be able to capture the intensity and passion behind our live shows will be the person that's going to be able to do our record the best."

Chiodos have been steadily making a name for themselves since the release of All's Well with appearances on last summer's Warped Tour and a fall trek with Atreyu and Every Time I Die (see "Every Time I Die Carry On With Tour, DVD After Losing Fifth — Yes, Fifth — Bassist"). Signed to independent label Equal Vision, the band has fielded offers from several majors and turned them down. Chiodos' concerts are attended by a veritable who's who of the A&R game, with reps coming in droves to check out the band's much-lauded live set — which has obviously left a lasting effect on its growing base of fans. According to Owens, his band sold more merch than the headlining acts on the Atreyu run.

"If there's kids in front of us, most of the time they're going to go home thinking about us — even if they showed up to see their favorite band," the singer said. "We make it a point to make sure they're leaving with us in their minds. I love being the person that gives them something completely different and makes them love it."

When it comes to their next record, Chiodos aren't about to rush the process. Owens said he wants the writing and recording to be organic because "we're in no rush to become the biggest band in the world. We just want to play the music we want to play, and for our fans to respect and understand that.

"As we write this next album, it's like a well-oiled machine," he continued. "All six of us write, so you've got six creative minds working at once. This next one will be a more mature record that will change the minds of the people who didn't like us, and keep the old fans happy too. But music shouldn't be your trying to write a record a certain way. If you don't feel it burning from your chest and your gut, you shouldn't be writing, period."

Owens said he'd love it if Warped Tour mastermind Kevin Lyman invited Chiodos back for this summer's edition but also realizes his band still needs to pay its dues. Nevertheless, that hasn't stopped Chiodos from setting lofty objectives for themselves.

"When we first started out, we had certain goals in mind, and as we continued, we had even more goals we wanted to attain," he explained. "We're the type of band that will work as hard as we possibly can until we get what we set out for. I'm not completely taken by surprise by the growing success of our record, or the major-label attention we're getting, because that's exactly where we wanted to be — where we are at this very moment. I am very, very grateful for where we've gone and what we've become, but without a lot of hard work, it wouldn't have been possible."

• Chiodos
• The Flaming Lips

Paramore, My Chemical Romance, The Bravery, More At Bamboozle Left 2008

• Paramore
• My Chemical Romance
• The Bravery
• Chiodos
• Rx Bandits