Who knew the Mickey Mouse Club would be a launching pad for late-Nineties pop sensations? For the second time this year a former Mousketeer has hit the No. 1 spot. The self-titled debut from Christina Aguilera, following in the footsteps of Disney alum Britney Spears, sold 252,000 copies for the week ending Aug. 29, according to SoundScan. That's an eye-popping debut considering Spears sold 120,000 copies her first week in stores back in January. Clearly, the sultry singer's radio smash "Genie in a Bottle" helped fuel her break-out success. That and the fact the assembly-line teen pop machine shows no signs of slowing down.

Right behind Aguilera at No. 2 was Puff Daddy's Forever. But the less said about the rapper's disappointing commercial performance, probably the better. Not only did the overexposed mastermind of Nineties hip-pop fail to beat out Aguilera, a teen singer nobody had heard of four months ago, but the rap mogul's new album barely sold 200,000 copies in its first week. (Industry insiders figured it was a cinch to make 300,000.) That, despite a non-stop promotional push and the fact Forever is a follow-up to Puffy's massively successful, multi-platinum debut, No Way Out. The problem was the album's first single, "P.E. 2000," has been AWOL at radio, and most critics have slammed Forever. (One New York scribe labeled it an "unconscionably bad record.")

With a flurry of new superstar fall releases set to hit stores, it seems unlikely Forever will ever reach No. 1.

Speaking of new releases, looking ahead it will be interesting to see if Aguilera can hold off country phenoms the Dixie Chicks and their latest, Fly, which arrived in stores on Tuesday and makes its chart debut next week. Coming off their six-times platinum debut, Wide Open Spaces, the Dixie Chicks' critically acclaimed Fly has all the markings of a blockbuster.

Aguilera and Puff Daddy weren't the only ones hitting the Top 10 in their first week out; Rapper Noreaga's latest, Melvyn Flynt: Da Hustler, the follow-up to '98's N.O.R.E., debuted at No. 9.

Other notable sales performances belonged to hard rockers Sevendust, whose Home came in at No. 19, while soft rappers LFO's self-titled debut checked in at No. 21.

From the top, it was Christina Aguilera's Christina Aguilera, followed by Puff Daddy's Forever(selling 205,000 copies); the Backstreet Boys' Millennium (200,000); Limp Bizkit's Significant Other (141,000); Mary J. Blige's Mary (127,000); Britney Spears' ...Baby One More Time (124,000); Santana's Supernatural (116,000); Kid Rock's Devil Without a Cause (110,500); Noreaga's Melvyn Flynt: Da Hustler (110,000); and Ricky Martin's Ricky Martin (109,000).

ERIC BOEHLERT

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