While a bevy of fresh faces landed near the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart this

week, including two artists who entered the top 10 with their debut albums, pop stars the

Backstreet Boys and Ricky Martin maintained the lopsided hold on the chart they've had for

three weeks running.

The newcomers included Ja Rule, a Queens, N.Y., rapper who became popular last summer

for his rhymes on Jay-Z's hit "Can I Get A ...," and Jennifer Lopez, the

actress who is part of the Latin-pop explosion that also includes Martin. Ja Rule's Venni

Vetti Vecci debuted at #3, while Lopez's On the Six, which features the #1 single

"If You Had My Love" (RealAudio excerpt),

entered at #8.

But the Backstreet Boys' Millennium and Martin's Ricky Martin smoked those

and all other comers, by selling 437,898 and 312,657 copies, respectively, to keep the #1

and #2 positions, according to sales tracker SoundScan, whose figures are based on sales for

the week ending Sunday. The closest anyone came was Ja Rule, whose album sold just

over 184,000 copies last week.

Millennium, which boasts the hit "I Want It That Way" (

href="http://media.addict.com/atn-bin/get-music/Backstreet_Boys/I_Want_It_That_Way.ram">RealAudio excerpt), topped

the 2-million mark in overall sales and has now sold 2.2 million copies in just three weeks. It

sold 1.13 million its first week in stores, the most any album has sold in a week since

SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991.

Ricky Martin, released a week before Millennium, has sold almost 1.9 million

copies.

The next-highest debut came from the rap band Tru, a trio featuring rapper/entrepreneur

Master P and his brothers Silkk the Shocker and C-Murder (a.k.a. Percy, Vyshonn and Corey

Miller). Their fourth album, Da Crime Family, hit the chart at #5. Another album featuring

Master P, Master P Presents the No Limit All-Stars Who U Wit?, came out a week

earlier and is at #108.

In March, C-Murder said he was honored by the chance to make Da Crime Family with

his brothers rather than competing with them. "It's much easier to work this way," he said. "You

can sit back and say, 'Damn!' You just respect what they're doing a lot."

The Tru album's high entry continued a tradition of strong debuts by albums on Master P's No

Limit Records. Snoop Dogg's No Limit Top Dogg debuted at #2 last month and now

stands at #21.

Southern California punk band Blink 182 entered at #9 with Enema of the State. The

album, which contains "What's My Age Again," follows up Dude Range (1997), which

featured the radio hit "Dammit."

The soundtrack to "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me," which has already scored

two radio hits with Madonna's "Beautiful Stranger" and Lenny Kravitz's cover of the Guess

Who's "American Woman" (RealAudio excerpt), debuted at

#14. The soundtrack also features such 1960s nuggets as Quincy Jones and His Orchestra's

"Soul Bossa Nova," R.E.M.'s cover of Tommy James' "Draggin' the Line" and Scary Spice's

version of Cameo's "Word Up."

The high debuts of Blink 182 and, in part, the "Austin Powers" soundtrack, contributed to a

continuing upswing for rock acts in recent weeks. Kid Rock, who mixes rap rhymes with

heavy-metal guitar, stayed in the top 10 with Devil Without a Cause, which dropped

from #9 to #10. The Insane Clown Posse, another rock-and-rap hybrid, was at #15 with

The Amazing Jeckel Brothers, which debuted a week ago at #4. Also in the top 40 are

albums by the Offspring (#16), Godsmack (#27) and Lit (#31).

Yet pop continues to dominate the pop mountain, with teen-pop singer Britney Spears'

... Baby One More Time at #4, pop-soul trio TLC's Fan

Mail at #6 and country singer Shania Twain's Come On Over, which features the

pop hit "That Don't Impress Me Much," at #7.

Robert Santelli, vice president of education programs for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in

Cleveland, said he suspects pop's growth has more to do with the absence of a rock

superstar than with its own merits.

"When there isn't a strong musical trend in rock 'n' roll, the opportunity exists to be filled with

these kinds of very pop-oriented groups," Santelli said. "It's always there, always waiting in

the wings. It fills the gap nicely. Something has to come along and push this out of the way ...

It's nothing anyone commits to with any long-term intensity."

Other notable debuts included country band Lonestar's Lonely Grill at #29, the self-titled

debut from R&B group Blaque at #79 and electronic artist Moby's critically acclaimed

Play at #145.