Kiss perform at the General Motors Centre in Oshawa, Ontario, during their "Kiss Alive 35" tour, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2009.

Credit: AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Chris Young

Trick or Treat: Just in time for Halloween, those face-painting rockers Kiss are poised to have their first ever No. 1 album.

Like Pearl Jam two weeks ago, Gene Simmons and the boys are looking pretty sweet to claim the top spot on the Billboard 200 next week with their self-released set that goes through a single retailer. (Pearl Jam’s “Backspacer” was a Target exclusive, with a few caveats;  Kiss is going through Wal-Mart.) “Sonic Boom” is a 3-disc set of new and classic Kiss, plus a DVD. Hits Daily Double predicts it will sell up to 160,000 copies, which is twice as much as Toby Keith’s “American Ride,” which is slated to come in at No. 2 with sales of around 80,000. Let’s take a minute to ponder that the two top spots will belong to platinum plus acts who have decided to go on their own rather than remain on major labels. Times are definitely changing…

The only other titles slated to debut in the Top 10 are country rising star Luke Bryan, whos likely to come in around No. 6 and the Backstreet Boys, who, despite having to cancel appearances because of Brian Littrell’s swine flu, will slide into the Top 10  with sales of 45,000 copies. It’s not too long ago they were selling close to a million copies in their opening week. Last week's charttopper, Barbra Streisand, slips to No. 3, while Mariah Carey falls to 6 or 7. Madonna slides right out of the Top 10.

The wild card is Michael Buble’s “Crazy Love,” which comes out off-cycle on Friday. Instead of sticking to with the planned Oct. 13 release, Warner Bros. moved it up to Oct. 9 to take advantage of his appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show”  on Friday.