R. KELLY BOUNCES 50 CENT

Troubled R&B singer R. KELLY's "Chocolate Factory" sold 532,000 copies in its first week, according to SoundScan, to debut Number One. 50 CENT's "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" still fared well at Number Two, selling 520,000 copies, with a three-week total of 2.2 million. NORAH JONES' "Come Away With Me" celebrated its one-year anniversary with 144,000 copies sold, good enough for Number Three. The week's second highest debut was the "Cradle 2 the Grave" soundtrack, featuring music by DMX, at Number Six with sales of 98,000.

BOWIE, WAITS GET LITERARY

DAVID BOWIE, TOM WAITS and STEVE EARLE have contributed music to "Songs Inspired by Literature: Chapter 2," a sixteen-track collection due March 12th. Bowie's contribution, "1984," takes its name from the George Orwell novel. Earle based "Dixieland" on the historical novel "The Killer Angels" by Michael Shaara, and Waits' "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is inspired by a Flannery O'Connor short story. Proceeds will go to Artists for Literacy, a non-profit organization in San Francisco that promotes literacy through music and community outreach.

LINKIN PARK PLOT FREE TOUR

LINKIN PARK will launch a month-long club tour for members of their LP Underground Fan Club. The Underground Tour will be free to members, who will also get a chance to participate in a meet-and-greet with the group after each show. The tour begins March 11th in Worchester, Massachusetts, and will be a warm-up for the band's Projekt Revolution 2003 tour with MUDVAYNE, XZIBIT and BLINDSIDE in April. In July, Linkin Park will join METALLICA's Summer Sanitarium tour.

REISSUES PRESERVE GITS' LEGACY

Legendary Seattle band the GITS will have their two albums 1993's "Frenching the Bully" and 1994's "Enter: The Conquering Chicken" reissued with bonus tracks in June and October, respectively. The albums went out of print after the 1993 murder of frontwoman MIA ZAPATA. "I think ninety-nine-percent of Gits fans never saw us play," drummer STEVE MORIARTY told Rolling Stone. "It's an underground thing, Gits fans feel that they're part of a special club. It's like a well-kept secret." A documentary about the band is also due in the fall.

IN THE NEWS

AUDIOSLAVE have joined the lineup for the U.K.'s Download Festival. LIMP BIZKIT, MARILYN MANSON, the DEFTONES and IRON MAIDEN will also play the event, scheduled for May 31st and June 1st . . . The RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS will headline a concert at Ireland's Slane Castle on August 23rd. The FOO FIGHTERS and QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE will also perform . . . DAVID GRAY will play seventeen dates on the second leg of his U.S. tour behind "A New Day at Midnight," starting July 17th in Hartford, Connecticut . . . The POLYPHONIC SPREE will begin their first full-scale U.S. tour on April 10th in Chicago, running thirteen dates . . . TOBY KEITH and PAMELA ANDERSON will host the Country Music Television's Flameworthy 2003 Awards in Nashville on April 7th.

ANNIE LENNOX will release her next solo album, "Bare," on June 10th on J Records . . . A Los Angeles parole board ordered rap mogul MARION "SUGE" KNIGHT to be released from jail yesterday. Knight had been imprisoned since December 23rd after he was arrested for associating with gang members, a violation of his parole . . . FISCHERSPOONER will launch their first-ever North American tour on April 8th in Toronto in support of their new album, "#1" . . . DIONNE WARWICK said this week that the marijuana found in her purse at Miami International Airport last year was planted by someone else . . . PEPPERS GHOST will launch an eight-date tour on March 8th in Wilmington, Delaware.

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