Are These Albums Approaching These Numbers?

Garth Brooks’ new album, “Sevens,” is expected to post the highest opening-week sales total of the year, but the head of his record label says the country singer’s decision to delay the collection’s release for three months may have cost Brooks more than 1 million in first-week sales.

The 14-song set, originally scheduled for release on the morning of Brooks’ Aug. 7 HBO-televised concert in New York’s Central Park, sold more than 700,000 copies and perhaps as many as 850,000 during Thanksgiving week, Capitol Nashville President Pat Quigley estimated Monday.

If the album had been released in conjunction with the Central Park concert, Quigley said, Capitol’s expectation was to sell a staggering 2 million copies in the first week, more than twice the SoundScan-era opening-week record of 950,000 set by Pearl Jam’s 1993 album “Vs.”

“That was our marketing plan,” Quigley said. “The HBO special was so powerful that you can’t hope to duplicate that with advertising and promotion. It’s going to take us longer to do what the Central Park event would have done for us all by itself.”

Brooks held up the release until last week after sweeping executive changes at Capitol’s parent company, EMI Recorded Music, raised questions in his mind about the label’s ability to effectively market “Sevens.” It took three months for the company to win his approval with a new marketing plan.

Despite the delay, “Sevens” is expected to enter the pop chart at No. 1 on Wednesday with a first-week sales figure that will rank among the top five or six debuts since SoundScan began monitoring U.S. record sales in 1991.

Only five albums have posted first-week sales of more than 700,000 copies. The top figure until Brooks this year was the Notorious B.I.G.’s posthumous “Life After Death,” a two-disc set that sold nearly 690,000 copies during its first week in stores last March.

But even as “Sevens” approaches record territory, it may not have been No. 1 last week in terms of generating retail dollars.

That distinction may go to 2Pac’s two-disc release, “R U Still Down? (Remember Me),” which sold between 450,000 and 550,000 copies last week, estimated Barry Weiss, president of Jive Records.

The 2Pac album, which is selling for about $22, may have generated more than $12 million if it sold 550,000 copies. The Brooks album, selling for about $12, would have to sell 1 million copies to bring in that much retail income.

The record gross for a single week is believed to be more than $18 million, established two years ago by the Beatles’ two-disc “Anthology 1,” which sold more than 855,000 copies during its first week in stores. The first-week gross for the Notorious B.I.G.’s album this year probably topped $15 million.

Both Quigley and Weiss based their sales predictions Monday on conversations with key retail outlets around the country, which usually provide an accurate barometer. They will receive official figures when they are reported Wednesday by SoundScan.

The figures for the 2Pac album continue the enormous pop music success of the late Tupac Shakur, who recorded under the name 2Pac--and of rap in general. Shakur’s last album, “Makeveli: Don Killuminati--The 7 Day Theory,” sold nearly 664,000 copies during its first week in stores last November, and his two-disc 1996 set, “All Eyez on Me,” sold nearly 566,000.

This year, some 10 rap titles have occupied the No. 1 position on the pop chart and three--”Life After Death,” the Wu-Tang Clan’s “Wu-Tang Forever” and Puff Daddy’s “No Way Out”--have rung up first-week sales of more than 560,000 copies. The Shakur album was released on Amaru Records, a new label started by his mother, Afeni Shakur.

“I don’t think his appeal has diminished one ounce,” Jive’s Weiss said of Shakur, who was shot to death in Las Vegas 15 months ago. “Like James Dean or Jim Morrison, he’s a legend who died at the height of his popularity and will forever be entrenched in society as larger than life and a hero to millions of people.”

As for Brooks, even the singer was concerned about the loss of momentum caused by his decision to delay his new album. In an interview with The Times last week, he said: “We took a risk by not putting the record out then.”

Quigley insists that overall sales of “Sevens” will not suffer. He says retailers have told him they expect sales of the album to increase during the holiday sales rush.

“We’ll have a nice steady growth for the record rather than a big slashing week,” the executive said. “We’re not into breaking records here. We’re into steady sales growth.”

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(Record first week album sales)

Pearl Jam, ‘Vs.’: 950,377

Pearl Jam, ‘Vitalogy’: 877,001

Beatles, ‘Anthology 1’: 855,473