By Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY
The Backstreet Boys are entering the new millennium with a history-making Millennium of their own.
The group's second album sold 9,445,732 copies to rank as 1999's top seller, according to year-end figures from SoundScan. It places eighth among all albums sold since SoundScan began tabulating data in 1991. Backstreet's self-titled debut is 10th overall with 9.2 million; the Boys are the only act in the top 10 more than once.
Totals reflect a healthy surge for the $14 billion music industry, with 754.8 million albums sold in 1999, up 6% from 711 million in 1998. An estimated 8.5 million albums were sold on the Internet last year. CD sales, up 12%, account for 86% of recordings sold.
Britney Spears' Baby One More Time is No. 2 for the year with 8,358,619 copies sold, followed by Ricky Martin (5,981,155), Shania Twain's Come On Over (5,618,134), Limp Bizkit's Significant Other (4,952,890), Santana's Supernatural (4,732,589), Kid Rock's Devil Without a Cause (4,259,736), TLC's Fanmail (4,186,685), Christina Aguilera (3,662,905) and the Dixie Chicks' Wide Open Spaces (3,463,642).
R&B remains the strongest genre, with 175.3 million albums sold, up 9% from 1998. Alternative rock is second, with 120.9 million units, followed by rap, country and gospel/Christian. Soundtracks, sixth in the genre breakdown (which does not break out pop or non-alternative rock), dropped to 41.6 million from 61.4 million. Eighth-place Latin music sold 22.2 million units, up from 15.6 million in 1998, a 43% leap.
