Another rock album will scream its way to the top of the Billboard

200 albums chart this week, as Korn's Issues edges out rapper/producer

Dr. Dre's Dr. Dre 2001 in a battle of big-name debuts.

Both albums sold more than a half-million copies in the week ending Sunday,

with Korn's album outselling Dr. Dre's, 573,785 to 516,353, according to

SoundScan figures released Wednesday (Nov. 24).

Issues will be the fifth rock record to hold the #1 position in

the past three months, following Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile,

Creed's Human Clay, Santana's Supernatural and Rage Against

the Machine's The Battle of Los Angeles.

The rest of the top 10 will be: pop singer Celine Dion's retrospective

All the Way ... A Decade of Song (#3); Supernatural (#4);

rapper Will Smith's Willennium (#5); pop band the Backstreet Boys'

Millennium (#6); R&B singer Mariah Carey's Rainbow (#7);

pop singer Britney Spears' ... Baby One More Time

(#8); Wu-Tang Clan rapper Raekwon's Immobilarity (#9), and last

week's #1, country singer Faith Hill's Breathe (#10).

The Dion, Smith and Raekwon albums are also chart debuts.

The songs on the Korn album straddle a line between agony and anger. The

single "Falling Away From Me" (RealAudio

excerpt) and other songs use spooky, minimal guitar riffs on the

verses and pure guitar noise and screaming on the choruses.

Issues, produced by Brendan O'Brien (Stone Temple Pilots, Rage

Against the Machine) comes little more than a year after Follow the

Leader, which hit #1 in 1998.

"It seems like a lot of bands are making albums every five years, instead

of every year," singer Jonathan Davis said during an in-store appearance

Sunday at a Tower Records in Northridge, Calif. "We want to keep getting

the music out to our fans."

Dr. Dre 2001 is the rapper's first album in seven years, following

up The Chronic (1992), widely considered a hip-hop classic for its

use of bass and keyboards; its sampling of funk grooves from Parliament,

Isaac Hayes and Donny Hathaway; and its blunt references to drugs and

violence.

Dr. Dre 2001 puts a new spin on the rapper/producer's laid-back

musical style. Its first single, "Still D.R.E." (RealAudio

excerpt), uses ukulele and keyboards to drive home Dre and Snoop

Dogg's statement that they "still got love for the streets."

This is the first time this year that two albums have debuted with sales

of more than 500,000 copies.

Dion, the French Canadian singer with an operatic range, has been a virtual

hit factory this decade, and her new compilation covers those hits,

including "The Power of Love," "Beauty and the Beast" and "My Heart Will

Go On," her smash hit from the movie "Titanic."

Willennium is the second solo album by the popular rapper and actor

formerly known as the Fresh Prince. Fellow rappers Eve, Lil' Kim and Slick

Rick appear on the album, which Smith unveiled during a confetti-laden

appearance in New York's Times Square last week. Sticking to recent

tradition, Smith's single "Will2K" (RealAudio

excerpt) uses an easily recognizable sample, from the Clash's

"Rock the Casbah."

Raekwon will be the sixth member of the Wu-Tang Clan to enter the chart

in the top 100 with a solo album this year, and the fourth to debut in

the top 10. Last week, the 29-year-old said he wanted to stray from his

previous work by using unknown producers and rappers — not using

Wu-Tang mastermind RZA — and rapping about his feelings more than

on 1995's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, which peaked at #4 on the chart.

"On the first [album], I didn't have no remorse for what I did," he said.

"Now I have to, because I have to cater to the ones who love me"

(RealAudio

excerpt of interview).

Outside the top 10, the highest-profile debut will come from shock-rocker

Marilyn Manson. His namesake band's live album The Last Tour on Earth

will come in at #82; Manson's most recent studio album, Mechanical

Animals, debuted at #1 a year ago. The Last Tour on Earth

collects performances of songs such as "The Dope Show" and "The Beautiful

People" from the Mechanical Animals tour.

Other debuts this week will include rapper Kurupt's Tha Streetz Iz a

Mutha (#31), which includes the unlisted track "Calling Out Names,"

a scathing indictment of East Coast rappers; the pro-wrestling compilation

WCW Mayhem (#40), with songs from Megadeth, Slayer and others;

folk singer Ani DiFranco's To the Teeth (#76), which features cameos

from The Artist and Curtis Mayfield; and the Bob Marley tribute album

Chant Down Babylon (#79), on which such artists as Lauryn Hill,

Busta Rhymes and Aerosmith's Steven Tyler sing electronically created

duets with the late reggae singer.

Dropping out of the top 10 this week are Rage Against the Machine's

The Battle of Los Angeles, which slips from #4 to #11; Lou Bega's

A Little Bit of Mambo (#13); the soundtrack to "Pokémon:

The First Movie" (#14); pop band Savage Garden's Affirmation (#15);

and rapper Lil' Wayne's Tha Block Is Hot (#21).

Nine Inch Nails' critically acclaimed two-CD set The Fragile

continues its slide. The album, which debuted at #1 nine weeks ago, drops

to #134 this week. It has sold around 520,000 copies, according to SoundScan.