Eminem and Sara Bareilles duke it out for No. 1 on next week's Billboard 200

They make strange bedfellows, to be sure, but singer/songwriter Sara Bareilles and Eminem are in a dance over who will top next week’s Billboard 200.

Bareilles’ “Kaleidoscope Heart”  and Em’s “Recovery” are in a dead heat to sell around 90,000 each as we head into the weekend, according to Hits Daily Double. Bareilles has got a big hit on her hands with “King of Anything,” but Eminem is opening MTV’s Video Music Awards. He’ll see a bigger bump from that prestigious slot next week after Nielson SoundScan’s tabulating for the chart closes on Sunday night, but there are enough hours between his performance and the closing to give him the edge. It’s a nailbiter.

This week’s charttopper, Disturbed’s “Asylum,” will likely drop to No. 5 with sales of 60,000.
Also debuting in the Top 10 are likely to be Stone Sour’s “Audio Secrecy” at No. 6,  rockers Anberlin’s “Dark is a Way, Light is the Place,”  and Interpol’s self-titled set at No. 9.

They’ll all have to move out the way shortly, however, because the Sept. 14 release slate is the biggest we’ve seen in months, with a high number of big name releases including Linkin Park, Weezer, Jamey Johnson, Brandon Flowers,  Robert Plant, Of Montreal and Trey Songz.