Following a 50 Cent-featured outdoor performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, Mary J. Blige caps off her week with the knowledge that she'll have the #1 album on the Billboard albums chart when Monday rolls around.

The queen of hip-hop soul's sixth album, Love & Life, sold more than 285,000 copies, according to SoundScan, to knock The Neptunes Present ... Clones from the top spot. The producers' compilation LP, which includes their work with Busta Rhymes, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg and Nelly, will fall to #3, with more than 115,000 in sales.

Blige is among music's most consistent artists on the albums chart. Of her last four albums, three debuted in the top two slots, and the fourth, 1994's My Life, took #9. Love & Life's first-week draw was second only to 2001's No More Drama, which sold more than 294,000 its first week out. Blige's three most recent releases, No More Drama, 1999's Mary and 1997's Share My World, each sold between 240,000 and 294,000 copies in the weeks they debuted.

Real-life Lizzie McGuire, Hilary Duff, will bow in at #2 with Metamorphosis. With a TV series, summer blockbuster movie and hit single in "So Yesterday," Duff is a poster girl for cross promotion, evidenced by the 203,000 copies of her album that were rung up at retail. The soundtrack to "The Lizzie McGuire Movie," meanwhile, will take the #18 position, having sold more than 1.08 million copies.

Drankin' Patnaz, the second album by Atlanta rap duo the Youngbloodz, will check in at the #5 spot thanks to heat provided by their Lil Jon-featured single, "Damn!" Sean Paul (not the dancehall guy) and J-Bo's first-week draw of 85,000 falls short of country singer Alan Jackson's Greatest Hits Volume II, which will slip two spots to #4, with more than 113,000 in weekly sales.

Kentucky's Nappy Roots will also debut high with their second major-label album, Wooden Leather. "Roun' the Globe" provided the push for the follow-up to last year's Watermelon, Chicken and Gritz to debut at #12 and sell more than 58,000 copies.

Customarily, the VMAs give the performers and big winners a sales boost in the week following the show. Beyoncé, who both performed and took home three Moonmen, will delight in knowing her Dangerously in Love will jump three spots to #6, while its sales increased by more than 10,000, to 78,000.

Coldplay, who performed and won all three awards for which they were nominated, also felt the VMA goose in a major way. The year-old A Rush of Blood to the Head will shoot up 11 notches to #10. The band's second album sold nearly 20,000 more copies last week than the week before, for a seven-day total of more than 61,000.

The remainder of next week's top 10 finds Evanescence's Fallen holding at #7 (77,000); the "Bad Boys II" soundtrack slipping three spots to #8 (75,000) and cracking the 1 million mark; and Chingy's Jackpot moving up two spots to #9 (62,000).

In possession of two Moonmen, 50 Cent will move three steps closer to the top 10, an area off-limits to his Get Rich or Die Tryin' for the past three weeks. 50's LP will be at #11, thanks to a sales increase of nearly 8,000 copies.

Strangely, 50's partner in rhyme and main competition in the VMA standoff, Eminem, didn't fare so well saleswise. Despite picking up one award from four nominations and the fact that his mug was focused on nearly every time the camera panned into the audience, The Eminem Show stayed relatively stagnant. His third album moved up three spots to #81, but his album fell in weekly sales by nearly 500 copies. Then again, when it's already sold more than 8.7 million copies, there's not a whole lot of room left to grow.

Performers and Viewer's Choice Award recipients Good Charlotte will see their album The Young and the Hopeless rise nine spots to #22, with weekly sales of 36,000, 3,000 more copies than the previous week. Without VMA help, however, 3 Doors Down pulled off nearly the same stunt. Their Away From the Sun will go from #33 to #23, thanks to a 4,000-copy increase in sales.

All the attention Jessica Simpson received from the "Newlyweds" show and her VMA appearances may prove as skimpy as the material that comprised the jacket she wore to the awards. Her third album, In This Skin, plunged as low as that neckline, from #10 to #25, in only its second week out.

Ironically, Johnny Cash, whose six-time nominated "Hurt" only won for Best Cinematography, made out like a true VMA bandit. His American IV: The Man Comes Around will re-enter the top 200 at #91. Weekly sales of the LP more than doubled, from 5,700 copies to more than 13,000.

Other albums that were VMA-blessed include Justin Timberlake's Justified, up 11 spots to #38; the White Stripes' Elephant, up 9 spots to #39; and MTV2 Award-winners AFI's Sing the Sorrow, up 11 spots to #76.

Debuts on next week's chart include Wind by terminally ill "Werewolves of London" singer Warren Zevon at #16; Cher's Live - Farewell Tour at #40; Encore: The Very Best of Rod Stewart Volume 2 at #66; The Very Best of Cher at #83; the Bouncing Souls' Anchors Aweigh at #168; and Boo & Gotti's Perfect Timing at #195.

For complete coverage of the VMAs past and present, check out the MTV Video Music Awards archive. And visit vma.mtv.com.