HOT STUFF: As we near the one-third...

HOT STUFF: As we near the one-third mark of 1994, Mariah Carey’s “Music Box” stands as the year’s biggest seller: approximately 1.4 million copies sold since Jan. 1.

Carey is joined in the 1994 million-sales club by seven other albums, according to SoundScan, the sales monitoring firm that tallies the weekly charts for Billboard magazine.

The other albums that have also sold 1 million copies since Jan. 1: Ace of Base’s “The Sign,” Toni Braxton’s “Toni Braxton,” Counting Crows’ “August & Everything After,” Celine Dion’s “The Colour of My Love,” Salt-N-Pepa’s “Very Necessary” and Snoop Doggy Dogg’s “DOGGY-STYLE.”

Mike Fine, chief executive officer of SoundScan, points out all the albums are holdovers from 1993--a fact that underscores the record industry’s reluctance to release key albums early in the year.

The assumption for years has been that after spending so much money on records during the holiday season, pop fans need time to get back into a buying mood. So record companies wait a while before coming out with their big blockbuster releases, with a heavy emphasis on spring and summer sales campaigns.

But Fine questions that theory.

“Our figures show that January, February and March aren’t that much different, from a sales volume standpoint, than June, July and August,” he says.

“So it might make sense for a company to come out with some of its hot new albums in January or February and take advantage of the lack of new competition.”

Of the true 1994 releases, Pink Floyd’s “The Division Bell” could be the first to join the million-sales club. In just two weeks it is nearing the 750,000 mark.