'Heart' breaking as top album

By BRUCE HARING

Billy Ray Cyrus is the odds-on favorite to cop the top-selling album of 1992, while Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" is the leading candidate for best-selling single of the year, according to data compiled by SoundScan, the point-of-sale monitoring system for the nation's retail outlets.

Results obtained yesterday by Daily Variety do not include SoundScan sales tallies after Dec. 27, which may change the final picture among best-sellers for 1992.

Houston's soundtrack to her film "The Bodyguard" set a new SoundScan record last week by selling more than 1 million units, topping its own previous record of 831,000 units, set earlier this month.

If sales continued at that pace in the week after Christmas (those numbers aren't available yet), Houston may move up from her No. 4 slot among album best-sellers to take top honors when the dust settles.

Houston should clearly cop best-selling single honors, with her ultra-hot "I Will Always Love You" moving 600,000 units last week. Its claim to the top is threatened only by the virtually dormant Sir Mix-A-Lot hit "Baby Got Back" in second place, and another late-charger: Wreckx-N-Effect's "Rump Shaker."

Albums currently topping the Billboard charts, which are based either wholly or in part on SoundScan data, include Houston's soundtrack for "The Bodyguard" as the top-selling album on the Billboard 200 and the R&B album chart, with its "I Will Always Love You" single atop the Hot 100 singles and the R&B singles charts.

Garth Brooks' "The Chase" is currently the top-selling country album, moving 250,000 units in the week ending Dec. 27.

Cyrus' Mercury/Nashville debut album, "Some Gave All," moved 4.68 million units in '92, holding the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 for most of the summer. The album was powered by its infectious single, "Achy Breaky Heart," which finished in the No. 6 position among single sellers.

That development is not surprising, however, as singles sales have been stronger for R&B and rap acts for a number of years, with the genres claiming the first five slots on the top-selling singles list.

While Cyrus' triumph in his rookie outing is significant, he won the album race in a relatively sluggish sales year that produced no blockbuster albums. The gap is not wide between his 4.68 million units and the No. 25 finisher, Color Me Badd, whose self-titled Giant Records debut moved 1.59 million units.

Houston's "I Will Always Love You" sold 2.78 million units to take top honors among singles. "The Bodyguard" soundtrack finished fourth in album sales for '92 .

After Cyrus and Brooks' "Ropin' the Wind," Pearl Jam's Epic album "Ten" was in the No. 3 slot, followed by "The Bodyguard," Kris Kross' "Totally Krossed Out ," Garth Brooks' "No Fences" and "The Chase," Nirvana's "Nevermind," Def Leppard's "Adrenalize" and Metallica's self-titled Elektra album.

The second tier of 10 included the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Blood Sugar Sex Magik," Eric Clapton's "Unplugged," U2's "Achtung Baby," Michael Bolton's "Time Love & Tenderness," Michael Jackson's "Dangerous," Boyz II Men's "Cooleyhighharmony," Genesis' "We Can't Dance," En Vogue's "Funky Divas," Bolton's "Timeless" and Bonnie Raitt's "Luck of the Draw."

On the singles side, Houston's song was followed by Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back," Kris Kross' "Jump," Boyz II Men's "End of the Road," Wreckx-N-Effect's "Rump Shaker," Cyrus' "Achy Breaky Heart," Clapton's "Tears in Heaven," House of Pain's "Jump Around," Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy" and Shai's "If I Ever Fall in Love."

The second 10 included the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Under the Bridge," Guns N' Roses' "November Rain," TLC's "Baby Baby Baby," Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody/Show Must Go On," Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," TLC's "Ain't 2 Proud 2 Beg," Madonna's "This Used to Be My Playground," Vanessa Williams' "Save the Best for Last," N2Deep's "Back to the Hotel" and Patty Smyth's "Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough."

In the SoundScan list of best-selling country albums, Cyrus' "Some Gave All" was again the topper, followed by Brooks "Ropin' the Wind,""No Fences" and "The Chase," Wynonna's self-titled debut album, Brooks & Dunn's "Brand New Man," Garth Brooks' "Beyond the Season" and "Garth Brooks," Reba McEntire's "For My Broken Heart" and George Strait's "Pure Country."