<i>Now That's What I Call Music! Vol. 22</i> artist Rihanna
Photo: Def Jam

A #2 debut on the Billboard albums chart is a big deal for Los Lonely Boys, whose Sacred scanned more than 66,000 copies at the nation's record retailers.

But that's small potatoes compared with the juggernaut that is the Now That's What I Call Music! franchise, the 22nd installment of which scanned 207,000 units in its second week on the chart, easily maintaining its hold on the top spot of next week's chart. The compilation disc boasts hits by Rihanna, Chris Brown, Three 6 Mafia, Nick Lachey, Kelly Clarkson and Nickelback.

In all, 14 new releases will crack next week's Top 200, with Los Lonely Boys performing best and country crooner Rodney Atkins right behind: His latest, If You're Going Through Hell, sold 55,000-plus copies to open at #3.

The rest of the Top 10 is filled with familiar faces. Gnarls Barkley's St. Elsewhere climbs one spot to #4 with nearly 53,000 scans, followed by the soundtrack to the Disney Channel original movie "High School Musical" at #5 with sales of 52,000.

Rascal Flatts' Me and My Gang fills the #6 hole, with more than 50,000 units sold, while Nelly Furtado's Loose slides three chart positions to #7. Rihanna's Girl Like Me ascends two spots to #8, selling 45,000, and at #9 it's the Dixie Chicks and their new one, Taking the Long Way. It's been a while since the Pussycat Dolls touched the chart's Top 10, as they do this week; their PCD owns the #10 spot, selling more than 43,000 copies.

Floridian rockers Red Jumpsuit Apparatus bow at #25 on the chart, selling more than 25,000 copies of their debut disc, Don't Fake It. West Coast hardcore outfit Eighteen Visions pops up at #74 on 11,000 copies sold of their latest self-titled release. Black Stone Cherry's self-titled debut occupies the #90 spot, while Golden Smog's Another Fine Day follows at #95, selling 9,300 units. Third Eye Blind's retrospective A Collection opens at #103, while Alien Ant Farm's Up In the Attic comes in at #114 with 8,000 copies sold. Helmet's Monochrome claims the #159 spot, having generated sales of 5,200 and change.

• Los Lonely Boys
• Rihanna
• Chris Brown
• Three 6 Mafia
• Nick Lachey

"Idol" finalist Bo Bice (file)
Photo: Ray Mickshaw/FOX

"American Idol" pays artists to let contestants sing their songs on the show, but it seems maybe the artists should be paying "Idol." As recent charts show, artists whose songs are performed on the singing competition see dramatic sales increases following the broadcast.

Two weeks ago, after Bo Bice sang Gavin DeGraw's "I Don't Want to Be," DeGraw's Chariot Stripped soared from #146 to #92 on Billboard's albums chart with a 61 percent sales boost (see "Springsteen's Latest Leaves Mariah, Rob Thomas In The Dust"). Meanwhile, online sales of the track itself, through Web sites like iTunes, rose a massive 94 percent.

Bice proved a powerful sales force again last week after singing Los Lonely Boys' "Heaven." The following week, Los Lonely Boys' self-titled debut, which includes the track, surged from #121 to #81 on a 77 percent sales increase.

And it's not just Bo. Rascal Flatts' Feels Like Today climbed from #27 to #22 with a 43 percent sales bump after Carrie Underwood sang "Bless the Broken Road," while Brian McKnight's Gemini jumped from #191 to #147 with a 46 percent sales boost following Scott Savol's rendition of "Everytime You Go Away" (see "Nine Inch Nails' With Teeth Devours Chart Competition").

Also last week, single sales jumped for Backstreet Boys' "Incomplete" and the "American Idol" season four finalists' rendition of Diana Ross' "When You Tell Me That You Love Me" after Anthony Fedorov and Vonzell Solomon sang those songs, respectively. (The Backstreet Boys and "Idol" albums have yet to be released.)

Certainly these figures are no coincidence.

"We've been scratching our heads, and there doesn't seem to be anything else that would cause those particular albums [to rise]," Billboard Director of Charts Geoff Mayfield said Wednesday. "It's not like there were big promotions or pricing changes. Our belief is the 'Idol' performances drew interest."

Though "Idol" is nearing the end of its fourth season, the show's influence on sales of recently released albums is a new phenomenon, as this is the first season the show has featured themes that allow contestants to sing contemporary music. Mayfield, however, has been tracking the show's impact on the catalog charts since "Idol" began four years ago.

"We noticed early on that the Bee Gees and Lionel Richie and other vintage artists who had been featured on the show, either as judges or when their music was performed, saw some pretty significant spikes," Mayfield said. "So it would make sense that would happen for current music."

Sales for so-called vintage artists have also been impacted this season. After Constantine Maroulis sang Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," a highlight of the season (see " 'American Idol' Recap: Constantine Now Rocker Of Choice, Nadia Like 'Wallpaper' "), the song suddenly appeared high on the downloads chart, Mayfield said.

In those cases, it's assumed that younger music fans are being turned on to veteran artists through "Idol." But shouldn't those same viewers already be familiar with DeGraw, Los Lonely Boys and the Backstreet Boys — artists who currently have top 40 radio singles?

"With the nature of radio being what it is, sometimes the consumer doesn't have a chance to put a name with a song until they see it performed on television," Mayfield explained. "Even if it's not the original artist [singing it], if the singer says, 'I'm doing a song by Gavin DeGraw,' the viewer says, 'Oh, I like that song, I'm going to get that album.' It's connecting dots."

Interestingly, Maroulis said it was more challenging to get newer songs cleared than older ones, despite the "Idol" producers' willingness to pay up to $6,000 for the rights.

"They don't necessarily want some kid on TV playing their song and maybe messing it up, so I'm sympathetic to that," said Maroulis, who was eliminated after singing Nickelback's "How You Remind Me," a song he selected after the artist behind his first choice refused to clear it (Maroulis wouldn't name names).

With the recent sales figures, however, clearing new songs should become easier. "Clearing songs, in general, gets easier each year as the show's popularity grows," Co-Executive Producer Ken Warwick said.

Maybe even someday — like with "The Apprentice," where companies pay big bucks to have their products be part of the competition — artists and their record labels will start writing checks instead of cashing them.

Get "Idol"-ized on MTV News' "American Idol" page, where you'll find all the latest news, interviews and opinions.

• Gavin DeGraw
• Backstreet Boys
• Los Lonely Boys
• Rascal Flatts

Beastie Boys (file)
Photo: Capitol

With their first album in six years, the Beastie Boys proved they can still get bodies movin' in record stores by knowing just whatcha want. The three MCs and one DJ's latest album, To the 5 Boroughs, will take the #1 position on next week's Billboard albums chart.

MCA, Mike D, Ad-Rock and Mix Master Mike sold more than 360,000 copies of Boroughs, according to SoundScan, to put shame in the game of the next-highest-charting debut, Celine Dion's New Day: Live in Las Vegas, which will come in at #10 with more than 57,000 copies sold.

The Boys' one-week total doesn't much compare with the opening week of their last album, 1998's Hello Nasty, which moved more than 681,000 copies in its first few days on sale to also debut at #1. The album before, 1994's Ill Communication, also bowed in at the top, but did so with just 220,000 copies.

The Beasties' big debut will keep Usher in the #2 spot with Confessions for the second straight week. Another 168,000 copies sold will put his fourth album's total at more than 4.3 million copies. Velvet Revolver, whose Contraband held Usher off on the previous chart when the album made its debut, will sit at #3 by selling more than 122,000 copies in its second week.

Most of the rest of the top 10 saw an increase in sales from the week before. Although Gretchen Wilson's Here for the Party will hold onto its #4 slot, the more than 104,000 copies sold is a 13 percent increase from the week before. Prince's Musicology will slip a spot while enjoying a 12 percent spike in sales (72,000 to 81,000). Similar movement will be made by Hoobastank's The Reason, from #6 to #7, though that album only saw an 8 percent rise in sales. D12's D12 World will step up in both position and sales, moving from #9 to #8 and adding 7,000 to their previous week's draw to sell more than 66,000 copies last week. Los Lonely Boys, entering the top 10 for the first time with their self-titled debut, will make the biggest jump of them all, from #13 to #9, while weekly sales rose to 61,000 copies, a 36 percent increase from the week before.

Besides Velvet Revolver's Contraband, the only other top-10 album to drop significantly in both placement and sales is Avril Lavigne's Under My Skin, which will move from #3 to #5, while selling 92,000 copies, 24 percent fewer than the week before.

While on their final tour, Phish will debut at #13 with their swan-song album, Undermind. The jam band will place just one spot higher than Christina Milian's It's About Time, which features the sexy single "Dip It Low."

Debuting at #53 is a reissue of Seether's 2002 debut, Disclaimer, called Disclaimer II, which boasts four new songs and a reworked version of "Broken" featuring Evanescence's Amy Lee (originally found on the soundtrack to "The Punisher"). Other notable chart debuts include buzz band the Killers' Hot Fuss at #59, Eighteen Visions' Obsession at #147, and rapper Ric-A-Che's Lack of Communication at #179.

• Beastie Boys
• Usher
• Velvet Revolver
• Prince
• Phish

Velvet Revolver (file)
Photo: Dan Winters

Usher has been rocked at retail.

Selling more than 256,000 copies of Contraband in its first week out, Velvet Revolver will take Mr. Entertainment down a peg on next week's Billboard albums chart. The hit single "Slither," a ready-made fanbase and a boatload of press combined to give the band — which includes former members of Guns N' Roses and ex-Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland — a #1 placement for its debut album.

Proof that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, Contraband beat the combined first-week sales of the latest releases by both GN'R and STP (both were greatest-hits collections) by more than 41,000 copies.

Usher's Confessions shouldn't take the hit to heart. The more than 170,000 copies it sold last week has bumped the album's total sales beyond the 4 million mark. Usher may not be far from the hot seat for too long, since a re-release of the album, with at least three new songs, is on the horizon, according to producer Jermaine Dupri (see "Usher, Alicia Keys Record Duet").

Avril Lavigne's Under My Skin is showing some staying power after three weeks on the chart. Without a U.S. tour, only a smattering of radio festivals and emphasis given to just one, three-month-old single ("Don't Tell Me"), the album will slip one spot to #3, having sold more than 121,000 copies.

Another steadfast woman, country singer Gretchen Wilson, is showing similar staying power with Here for the Party, which will step back one place to #4, with more than 91,000 copies sold in its fifth week on shelves.

The #7 spot has been seeing a bit of 311 recently. Less than a year after their latest studio album, Evolver, debuted there, the reggae-inspired quintet's decade retrospective, Greatest Hits '93-'03, will follow suit, albeit with 23,000 fewer copies sold.

Perhaps fans gearing up for this year's Warped Tour, kicking off June 25, did so with the 2004 Warped Tour album. Featuring a sampling from this year's lineup — New Found Glory, NOFX, Thursday, Yellowcard and others — the 52-track LP sold more than 60,000 copies to take the #8 spot.

The remainder of next week's top 10 finds Prince's Musicology continuing its strong showing, though receding one spot to #5 (with more than 72,000 copies sold); Hoobastank's The Reason holding on to the #6 spot for the third straight week and selling more than 66,000 copies; D12's D12 World falling two spots to #9 (59,000); and Slipknot's Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) dropping five places to #10 (58,000).

Los Lonely Boys and the Black Eyed Peas continue to benefit from recent exposure. Trailed by a spate of great reviews while on their current tour, the Texas trio's self-titled debut has been on a hot streak in the last three weeks, moving from #31 to #23 to #13; while the Black Eyed Peas' "Let's Get It Started," the theme to this year's NBA Finals, helped Elephunk advance seven spots to #14 with 43,000 copies sold adding to its 1.3 million total.

Even a marriage to J. Lo couldn't spark sales for Marc Anthony. The Latin singer's latest, Amar Sin Mentiras, released just days after he wed Jennifer Lopez, will place at #26, 23 spots higher than his last Spanish-language LP, 2001's Libre, though with 17,000 fewer copies.

Modest Mouse and Franz Ferdinand are still tolling the bell for the aggro nü-metal that once dominated radio airwaves. After more than two months in stores, both bands' albums, Good News for People Who Love Bad News at #21 and Franz Ferdinand at #43, have shown steady improvement in the last three weeks.

Other notable chart debuts include country trio SheDaisy's Sweet Right Here at #16; punk chanteuse PJ Harvey's Uh Huh Her at #29; SoCal punk vets and Warped Tour headliners Bad Religion's The Empire Strikes First at #40; the Calling's second album, Two, at #54; Punk-O-Rama Vol. 9, featuring Pennywise, Rancid and the Bouncing Souls, at #67; Sonic Youth's Sonic Nurse at #70; A--hole, the new solo album from Kiss' Gene Simmons, at #86; Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, the major-label debut by New Jersey emocore group My Chemical Romance, at #103; and turntablists the X-ecutioners' Revolutions at #118.

• Usher
• Velvet Revolver
• Avril Lavigne
• Gretchen Wilson
• 311

47th Annual Grammy Awards Red Carpet

• Beyoncé
• Kanye West
• Mos Def
• Gwen Stefani
• Black Eyed Peas

47th Annual Grammy Awards Winners

• Maroon 5
• Black Eyed Peas
• Ben Harper
• Marc Anthony
• Los Lonely Boys