And that's what Supernatural spent the summer doing, before finally earning the #1 spot with sales of 169,524 copies for the week ending Sunday, according to figures released Wednesday (Oct. 20) by sales tracker SoundScan. Creed's album sold 167,211 copies, SoundScan reported.

The rest of the top 10, according to SoundScan figures: the Backstreet Boys' Millennium (#3); German dance-pop singer Lou Bega's A Little Bit of Mambo (#4, up from #9); pop singer Britney Spears' ... Baby One More Time (#5); pop singer Christina Aguilera's self-titled debut (#6); rapper Kid Rock's Devil Without a Cause (#7); thrash-rap band Limp Bizkit's Significant Other (#8); reggae-rockers 311's Soundsystem (debuting at #9); and rappers Method Man and Redman's Black Out! (#10).

Supernatural, propelled by the salsa-tinged single "Smooth" (RealAudio excerpt), co-written by and featuring singer Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20, entered the chart at #19 in June. The song is at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

Guitarist and bandleader Carlos Santana, who also worked with rappers Everlast, Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean and rock singers Eric Clapton and Dave Matthews on Supernatural, said shortly before the album's release, "Once I heard the songs and the lyrics, I said 'Oh, man! It's all in here!'

"So, obviously, there's some inner work happening, synchronicity ... with inner dreams, inner dimensions, inner meditations and stuff."

Santana became popular in the late 1960s with their mixture of Latino rhythms and pop melodies. They played the original Woodstock in 1969, at which Carlos Santana unleashed blazing, jazzlike guitar solos. Their early hits included covers of Fleetwood Mac's "Black Magic Woman," the Zombies' "She's Not There" and Tito Puente's "Oye Como Va." "Smooth" is their first #1 single.

"When [Supernatural] came out, people viewed it as just another Santana album," Keith Medin, an employee at Tower Records in Atlanta, said. "But when they've listened to what he's done, and the people he's working with, they're interested."

"It's nonstop," Tony Castillo, manager at a Tower Records in New York, said. "People will come in and pick up Celine Dion and Santana, or they'll grab the Mos Def [album] and the Santana. It's a wide array of people."

Omaha, Neb., rockers 311 will score the week's highest debut with Soundsystem, which continues their affinity for punk guitars and reggae rhythms on songs such as the single "Come Original." The album was co-produced by Hugh Padgham (Sting, XTC).

Rapper/producer Warren G, who scored top-10 hits in 1994 with "Regulate" and "This DJ," will debut at #21 with his third album, I Want It All (RealAudio excerpt of title track). The album features cameos from Snoop Dogg, Mack 10, Kurupt, Memphis Bleek, Eve and Slick Rick. Warren G — Dr. Dre's half-brother — said last month he especially enjoyed working with the album's younger guests, Memphis Bleek and Eve, both of whom have scored top-10 albums this year.

"They brought that love there that shows that the East and West Coast can work together," he said. "And we breaking bread together and we're successful" (RealAudio excerpt of interview).

Rapper Mos Def will debut at #25 with the jazzy and politically forceful Black on Both Sides. Busta Rhymes and Q-Tip make guest appearances on the album, the first solo effort from the 26-year-old native of Brooklyn, N.Y., who is one half of the duo Black Star. That band paid homage to old-school rap and espoused the nationalist politics of activist Marcus Garvey on last year's Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Black Star.

Also debuting: Eric Clapton's Clapton Chronicles: The Best of Eric Clapton 1981–1999, featuring "Tears in Heaven" and "Change the World," at #23; the hip-hop- and R&B-flavored soundtrack to "The Best Man," with songs from the Roots, Faith Evans and others (#30); R&B singer and Usher producer Donnell Jones' Where I Wanna Be (#35); blues-guitar prodigy Kenny Wayne Shepherd's third album, Live On (#52), which features Primus bassist Les Claypool and members of the late Stevie Ray Vaughan's backing band, Double Trouble; Atlanta rap group the Youngbloodz's Against the Grain (#92), with production by OutKast collaborators Organized Noize; and hardcore rapper Spice 1, whose Immortalized (#111) features blunt ghetto tales.

(SonicNet's Will Comerford contributed to this report.)