Still a chance for happy holidays

Halfway through the record industry’s busiest sales period, Atlanta rap duo OutKast leads the holiday-season pack, maintaining a comfortable lead over its closest rival, “American Idol’s” Clay Aiken.

At the other end of the crowded field, Limp Bizkit is limping indeed, with several retailers describing it as one of the season’s major sales disappointments. The multiplatinum-selling group’s “Results May Vary” has sold just under 800,000 copies in the same nine-week period that OutKast has sold 1.8 million copies on its new, two-disc collection, “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.” Others released since Labor Day that are selling strongly include albums from Hilary Duff, Ludacris and John Mayer, while the stragglers include Ja Rule, R. Kelly and Elvis Presley.

On the larger picture, retailers are encouraged by an overall sales increase compared to the same period last year.

The music industry has watched helplessly as sales have dropped consistently in recent years, losses commonly blamed on Internet downloading of music. So retailers, record companies and other members of the music industry are cautiously ecstatic over news that weekly sales are up consistently over the same period last year.

“We’ve had same-week increases over last year in 10 out of the last 11 weeks,” said Billboard charts director Geoff Mayfield. “We haven’t seen that kind of streak since the fall of 2001.”

Through Labor Day, Mayfield said, sales had been running 8.5% below what they were at that same point in 2002, but that has since been pared to a 5.1% deficit as of last week.

Individually, however, misses appear to outnumber the big hits.

In the win column with OutKast and Aiken, whose debut album “Measure of a Man” has sold almost 1.3 million since its October release, Duff has transformed herself from TV star to pop star, posting sales of 1.3 million with her debut album, “Metamorphosis.” And rapper Ludacris has topped the 1-million mark with “Chicken-N-Beer,” which remains in the Top 30 after nearly two months.

Sales on fellow rapper Ja Rule’s “Blood in My Eye,” on the other hand, have slowed dramatically since it entered the chart at No. 6 two weeks ago, and its total is just 242,000 to date.

Other albums that have sold under what retailers or their record labels had anticipated include R. Kelly’s “The R in R&B; Collection, Vol. 1” (730,000 in nine weeks), Mary J. Blige’s “Love and Life” (696,000 in 13 weeks), Elvis Presley’s “2nd to None” compilation (441,000 in seven weeks), Wyclef Jean’s “Preacher’s Son” (106,000 in three weeks) and Bob Seger’s “Greatest Hits 2” (91,000 in three weeks).

As for Limp Bizkit, Mayfield says the group’s new album “was by no means thought of as a certain thing ... that it would do anywhere near what the last Limp Bizkit record did.”

Britney Spears also will be working to a large extent in her own shadow with her new “In the Zone,” which got off to a strong start in its first week by topping the 600,000 mark, although that’s well shy of the 1.3 million first-week figure she posted in 2000 with her album “Oops! ... I Did It Again.”

“There were a number of doubters who weren’t sure if [Spears] could still put out a record this big, but she’s definitely done the job,” says Wherehouse Entertainment’s senior pop buyer Bob Bell, who also was impressed with the first-week response to Blink-182’s new album.

Rapper 50 Cent’s presence in the group G-Unit has allowed its “Beg for Mercy” album to avoid the typical pattern of a big hip-hop release. Of three major rap releases that came out Nov. 11, G-Unit’s sales dipped only 13% last week, compared to 38% for Jay-Z’s “The Black Album” and a more typical second-week rap falloff of 58% for Tupac Shakur’s latest posthumous album, “Tupac: Resurrection.”

That makes the continuing strength of OutKast’s album, a likely nominee next week in the Grammy best album category, all the more impressive to many in the industry.

Most expect Josh Groban’s second album, “Closer,” to remain a solid seller through Christmas because it appeals to a broad range of listeners, making it a safe choice for gift-giving. Other albums filling that bill include Aiken’s, Rod Stewart’s “Vol. II -- The Great American Songbook” and Barbra Streisand’s “The Movie Album.”

The latest releases from Sarah McLachlan and Sheryl Crow likewise figure to remain strong sellers, especially among over-30 buyers. Although public and industry interest is high for the forthcoming debut album by “American Idol” winner Ruben Studdard, the general feeling is he’ll land another silver medal to Aiken’s gold, the same thing that happened when they put out their initial singles last summer.

Country singer Toby Keith continues the muscular performance his “Shock’n Y’all” album demonstrated in its first week and is on track to cross the 1-million sales mark by next week. Alan Jackson’s “Greatest Hits Vol. II” also is holding up remarkably well after nearly four months in stores, retailers say.

Among releases still ahead, albums from Alicia Keys, Missy Elliott and the Offspring are expected to provide some late bright spots.

And once again, the industry looks to the Beatles for help during the holidays: The group’s “Let It Be ... Naked” entered the chart at No. 5 on sales of 280,000 copies.

“It’s not blowing out,” says Tower Records’ Southwest region director Bob Feterl, “but you can’t underestimate them. It’s going to do great for the Christmas season.”