For most artists, moving 1.6 million copies of an album in one week would be cause for celebration.

But the Backstreet Boys aren't most artists.

According to sales figures released by SoundScan on Wednesday (November 29), the Boys will debut at #1 on next week's Billboard 200 albums chart, after selling more than 1.59 million copies of their Back & Blue — an astonishing number by most standards.

However, many looked to the group to surpass fellow teen popsters 'NSYNC, who set a one-week record by selling more than 2.4 million copies of their No Strings Attached in March (see "'NSYNC Shatters Sales Record"). 'NSYNC shattered the previous record of 1.13 million, which was set by the Backstreet Boys' Millennium in May 1999.

Black & Blue lands at #3 on the list of the biggest one-week sellers, behind 'NSYNC and Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP, which sold more than 1.76 million copies in its first week in stores in May (see "Eminem Scores Sales Record In Busy Chart Week").

While they fell short of the U.S. one-week sales record, the Boys are contenting themselves with global first-week sales of more than 5 million for the album, which the group claims is a record. The group also announced via a press release that the U.S. figures make the Boys the first artists in the SoundScan era to score million-plus first-week sales with back-to-back albums.

The arrival of Black & Blue sends The Beatles 1 — the collection of #1 Beatles singles that was the previous week's #1 selling album — down to #2. The compilation Now That's What I Call Music - Vol. 5 also slipped a notch, from #2 to #3.