‘Scarecrow’ No. 1, No Haymaker

Garth Brooks entered the national sales chart at No. 1 for the seventh time Wednesday with what he has described as his last album, but he didn’t match his huge Garthian numbers of the past.

Brooks’ “Scarecrow” sold 466,000 copies during its first week in the stores, which is a big step up from the 262,000 for Brooks’ 1999 pop-rock project, “In the Life of Chris Gaines,” according to SoundScan.

The figure, however, is far behind the 1.1 million generated by “Garth Brooks Double Live” in 1998 and the 897,000 for “Sevens” in 1997.

Brooks said in October that he is retiring from the music business to spend more time with his three preteen daughters at their ranch in Oklahoma. He may explore screenwriting and directing films.

With more than 100 million albums sold, he is the biggest-selling solo artist ever in the U.S. The singer has been promoting the new album with three Wednesday CBS television concerts. The first was Nov. 14 at the Forum in Inglewood. The final one will be Wednesday from South San Pedro Island in Texas.

The other hot arrival on the new chart is Shakira, the Colombian singer-songwriter whose first English-language album, “Laundry Service,” entered the list at No. 3 after selling 202,000 copies last week.

“The Shakira figure would have surprised me two weeks ago, but we heard that there was a lot of interest in it as soon as it went on sale last week,” Geoff Mayfield, director of charts for Billboard magazine, said Wednesday. Also new in the Top 10 this week: Madonna’s “Greatest Hits, Vol. 2” (No. 7), Rob Zombie’s “The Sinister Urge” (No. 8) and Jewel’s “This Way” (No. 9).

The other positions in the Top 10 were claimed by Britney Spears (No. 2), Michael Jackson (No. 4), Enya (No. 5), Enrique Iglesias (No. 6) and Nickelback (No. 10).

Creed’s new album, “Weathered,” looks like a cinch to enter the chart at No. 1 next week after strong first-day sales Tuesday.

The Wherehouse chain’s senior pop buyer Bob Bell, in fact, said projections in the retail community give Creed a shot at selling between 800,000 and 1 million copies this week. The Wherehouse’s Bell also thinks Mick Jagger will have “very respectable” numbers with his new solo album, “Goddess in the Doorway,” which was released Tuesday. Early projections suggest it should fare better than Paul McCartney’s new album, “Driving Rain,” which entered the chart Wednesday at No. 26, with sales of 66,000.

Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A” is the nation’s best-selling single, breaking the six-week hold on the top spot by Whitney Houston’s rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”