The Red Hot Chili Peppers are, once again, living up to their fiery name.

So says the Billboard 200 albums chart.

Pop fans seem as excited about guitarist John Frusciante's return

to the Chili Peppers as they are about the band itself. Nearly 200,000 of them

bought Californication, the Chili Peppers' first album with John

Frusciante since 1991, last week -- enough for the album to debut at #3.

That's as close as anyone who isn't the Backstreet Boys or Ricky Martin

has got to the top of the chart in the past month, and the season's two

dominant pop acts showed no signs of slowing down.

The Backstreet Boys' Millennium topped the chart for a fourth

consecutive week after selling another 371,035 copies in the week ending

Sunday, according to album sales tracker SoundScan. The album has sold

about 2.4 million copies in those four weeks.

Puerto Rican pop singer Martin's self-titled English-language debut,

meanwhile, sold 309,743 copies, to top the 2 million mark overall and

hold the #2 spot. The album includes the hit single "Livin' la Vida Loca"

(RealAudio excerpt).

Funk-punkers the Chili Peppers, though, led a parade of new rock and

rap albums onto the chart. Quirky rockers Smash Mouth, whose "All Star"

(RealAudio

excerpt) is climbing the Billboard Hot 100, entered at

#10 with Astro Lounge. Directly behind them, at #11, stood the

virtues of processed drums and buried vocals -- heavy-metal veterans Def

Leppard's Euphoria.

Last month, Chili Peppers singer Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili

Peppers seemed less concerned about the potential competition with the

Backstreet Boys and Martin than he did about the artistry of

Californication, which includes "Scar Tissue" (RealAudio

excerpt). He said he was particularly enthused to play again with

Frusciante, who appeared on the band's pop breakthroughs Mother's

Milk (1989) and Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991) but left the

group in 1992.

"There was a sense of excitement that we never lost," Kiedis said. "I

don't think any of us ever dropped the emotional love for what we were

doing, even though we took time off. I think we always had our eye on

the fact that this was gonna culminate in the studio."

Also debuting in the top 100 were Jamiroquai's Synkronized -- the

follow-up to 1997's Traveling Without Moving -- at #28, gangsta

rapper MC Eiht's Section 8 at #54; and punk band Pennywise's

Straight Ahead at #62. Pennywise will spend the summer on the Vans

Warped tour, which starts June 25 in San Antonio.

Ministry's Dark Side of the Spoon -- which was banned by the

national retail chain Kmart because of the cover art of a nude, overweight

woman -- still managed to sell just over 17,000 copies, to debut at #92.

Indie rockers Pavement hit the chart at #95 with their fifth studio album,

Terror Twilight, on which they worked with Radiohead and Beck

producer Nigel Godrich.

Pavement guitarist/songwriter Stephen Malkmus recently explained why his

lyrics tend to delve into the psychological realm.

"Let's say something that's face value, like the Gettysburg address or

something -- that's all face value," he said. "You don't have to read

anything into that ... But this is art, so it's gonna be a little bit

separate. It's not gonna be totally literal. It's about whether there is

or is not a Freudian subconscious, or something."

Other debuts included pop brothers the Moffatts at #124 with Chapter

1 -- A New Beginning, their second album, and Buena Vista Social

Club Presents Ibrahim Ferrer -- a follow-up to the Ry Cooder-produced

1997 album Buena Vista Social Club -- spotlighting a veteran Cuban

folk band. A movie about the band called "Buena Vista Social Club,"

directed by Wim Wenders, is now in theaters.

Eclectic Japanese-American group Cibo Matto's Stereo-Type A

entered the chart at #171, metal band Biohazard's New World Disorder

at #187 and techno group Orbital's The Middle of Nowhere at #191.

Other than the Chili Peppers and Smash Mouth albums, the only LP to

break into the top 10 this week was the soundtrack to "Austin Powers:

The Spy Who Shagged Me," which jumped from #14 to #8 after two weeks in

stores. The album includes original songs and covers by R.E.M., Madonna,

Lenny Kravitz, Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach.

"Everyone likes the character of Austin Powers, and we have a high regard

for Mike Myers [the film's star]," R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe recently

said. R.E.M. cover Tommy James' 1971 hit "Draggin' the Line" on the

soundtrack.

Last week's #3, Ja Rule's Venni Vetti Vecci, is one of only four

hip-hop albums in the top 20. The others are Kid Rock's Devil Without

a Cause (#6), the compilation Ruff Ryders: Ryde or Die Vol. 1

(#13) and Tru's Da Crime Family (#15).

"Hip-hop is a hit-driven genre," said Sean Morin, general manager of a

Strawberries record store in Boston. "Right now, we've gotten bombarded

with the Backstreet Boys, Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez [whose On the

6 dropped to #12 this week] and all these other things. Rap has kind

of taken a back seat."

With albums on the horizon from Wu-Tang Clan members the Genius and Ol'

Dirty Bastard, hip-hop's album sales may climb once again, Morin said.

Kid Rock's album leapt from #10 to #6 this week as Kid Rock began a U.S.

tour with Limp Bizkit, another rock/rap act.

"It's something you got to see for yourself," Kid Rock said recently of

his live show. "We switch it up every night. We've been playing [the]

Marshall Tucker [Band]'s 'Can't You See' and 'Fortunate Son' by Creedence

Clearwater Revival," Kid Rock added.

For a man who has not released an album of new songs in more than a year,

Dave Matthews enjoyed a good chart week. In the week that an episode of

VH1's live series Storytellers, starring Matthews, began airing,

the Dave Matthews Band's Before These Crowded Streets (1998)

jumped from #83 to #63, while Live at Luther College, an acoustic

live album Matthews recorded with guitarist Tim Reynolds, moved up from

#80 to #58.

Rounding out the top 10 were 17-year-old pop singer Britney Spears'

... Baby One More Time (#4), country singer Shania Twain's

Come on Over (#7) and R&B trio TLC's Fan Mail (#9).