Limp Bizkit and the Backstreet Boys find themselves in a near dead heat at the top of the

Billboard 200 albums chart this week, with Limp Bizkit winning by a nose.

The thrash-rap band's second album, Significant Other, will be at #1 for a third

week when the chart is published Thursday (July 15), according to sales figures

released Wednesday (July 14) by SoundScan.

Significant Other sold 263,841 copies in the week ending Sunday — giving it

total sales of more than 1.2 million — while the Backstreet Boys' teen-pop opus

Millennium sold 260,058 copies, assuring it the #2 spot on the chart for a third

straight week.

Millennium has sold 3.7 million copies overall, according to SoundScan. The

Recording Industry Association of America, which bases its gold and platinum awards on

shipments to record stores, has already given Millennium quintuple-platinum

status, for shipments of 5 million.

Ricky Martin, whose self-titled album, featuring the hit "Livin' la Vida Loca," enjoyed a

week at #1 before Millennium hit the chart, will stay directly behind that album for

an eighth consecutive week.

This week's highest debut will come from No Limit Records gangsta-rapper Fiend,

whose second album, Street Life, will enter at #15. Street Life is the sixth

album by a No Limit artist to debut in the top 20 this year, following albums by Silkk the

Shocker, C-Murder, Mr. Serv-On, Snoop Dogg and Tru.

Further down the chart will be new albums by a few rock dinosaurs. The late Jimi

Hendrix, whose 1969 Woodstock performance is captured on Live at Woodstock,

will enter at #90. Ratt and Great White, two '80s metal bands now signed to Portrait

Records, a Columbia imprint started by famed talent scout John Kalodner, will debut at

#169 and #192, respectively, with their new albums.

Ratt, whose "Round and Round" was a #12 pop hit in 1984, returned to record stores last

week with Ratt. Great White, best known for their 1989 cover of Ian Hunter's "Once

Bitten Twice Shy," return to the chart with Can't Get Here From There.

Parody singer "Weird Al" Yankovic will make a big leap up the chart, from #35 to #16,

with Running With Scissors. The disc features "The Saga Begins" (RealAudio excerpt), a "Star Wars"

spoof to the tune of Don McLean's epic "American Pie." Yankovic made his name on

parodies of such songs as Michael Jackson's "Bad" and Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise."

"What I do for a living is take advantage of pop-culture phenomena, and it was no secret

that a new 'Star Wars' movie would take over the world when it came out," Yankovic said

last month.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers' Californication, which debuted last month at #3, will

re-enter the top 10, climbing three spots to #9. The album, which has now sold 640,000

copies, is highlighted by the melodic title track and the rock hit "Scar Tissue" (

HREF="http://media.addict.com/atn-bin/get-music/Red_Hot_Chili_Peppers/Scar_Tissue.ram">RealAudio excerpt).

"It's the same band that we had before with John [Frusciante, the guitarist who rejoined

the band after seven years away]," singer Anthony Kiedis said in May. "But obviously

we've grown as people and musicians. So the music is different. It's a different time.

Especially when we write music the way we do. It's an unstructured thing that relies on

emotion and intuition and spirit."

Rounding out the top 10 will be pop singer Britney Spears' ... Baby

One More Time at #4, the hip-hop heavy soundtrack to "Wild Wild West" at #5, the

Phil Collins-laced soundtrack to the Disney film "Tarzan" at #6, singer/songwriter Sarah

McLachlan's live album Mirrorball at #7, the rock soundtrack to "Austin Powers:

The Spy Who Shagged Me" at #8 and country singer Shania Twain's Come On

Over at #10.