R&B singer Toni Braxton's LP The Heat was hot enough to sell nearly 200,000 copies in its first week of release, but it still couldn't touch 'N Sync.

The boy band's third album, No Strings Attached, moved another 248,030 copies, which will hold off Braxton at #2 on this week's Billboard 200 albums chart, according to SoundScan data released Wednesday (May 3). The Heat features the Rodney Jerkins–produced first single, "He Wasn't Man Enough" (RealAudio excerpt).

No Strings has been at the top spot since debuting there five weeks ago, when it sold a record-breaking 2.4 million copies in its first week of release. The Recording Industry Association of America certified the album seven-times platinum last week, for total shipments of 7 million units.

"We don't have any answers," JC Chasez said last week of No Strings's record-breaking success. "It's a musical album, and that's where it all starts. You can't [have that kind of success] unless you show that you're passionate about what you do and that you are about the music."

"[This] is something that we put our heart and soul into, our blood, sweat and tears, and it's great that we're getting the response from fans," group member Joey Fatone said.

The only other new album to debut in the top 10 will be Cypress Hill's rock and rap double set, Skull & Bones, bowing in at #5.

The Los Angeles hip-hop group released both rock and rap versions of the album's first single, "Superstar," featuring such guest artists as Eminem, Everlast, Noreaga and members of Fear Factory, Deftones and Rage Against the Machine. Each version (RealAudio excerpt of rap version) is performing strongly on its respective radio format.

"When you first come out and you're really hot, the world really expects you to be supernatural, and everything you do has to be like the ultimate bomb," Cypress Hill rapper Sen Dog (born Senen Reyes) said recently of the song, which deals with the pitfalls of fame. "We've never forsaken our style for the money or the position in the music."

Other debuts this week are R&B singer Mya's second album, Fear of Flying, at #15, folk-rocker Neil Young's Silver and Gold at #22 and hip-hop hard-rockers Papa Roach's Infest at #48.

Young's LP follows in the relatively mellow tradition of his 1970 album After the Gold Rush, and includes songs Young wrote throughout the past 20 years.

"They're written in the same state of mind, I think, over years," Young said. "It's all unified. They all got put aside for one reason or another." The album includes the acoustic tracks "Good to See You" (RealAudio excerpt) and "Horseshoe Man."

The rest of the top 10 will be: Joe's My Name Is Joe at #3, Sisqó's Unleash the Dragon at #4, Santana's Supernatural at #6, R&B quartet Destiny's Child's The Writing's on the Wall at #7, hard-rockers Creed's Human Clay at #8, rapper Dr. Dre's Dr. Dre 2001 at #9 and rapper DMX's ... And Then There Was X at #10.