The Backstreet Boys might not break *Nsync's record.

Last Tuesday, the Orlando boy band released their latest effort, "Black & Blue", and the pressure was on group members Brian, Kevin, Howie, A.J. and Nick to top *Nsync's one-week sales of 2.4 million.

But, according to some music retailers, although "Black & Blue" will top the Billboard 200 albums chart, it might not break the sales record set by *Nsync's album "No Strings Attached," MTV reports.

"It fell short of 'NSYNC. My guess is it'll do 60 to 70 percent of what they did," Scott Levin, director of marketing for Musicland Stores Corporation, which owns the Sam Goody chain told MTV. "It's still a huge album, though."

Meanwhile, the Backstreet album sold approximately 15,000 copies across the U.S. at Tower Records stores. *Nsync sold over 45,000 at the same chain.

On the other hand, the sales for "Black & Blue" were impressively high at Best Buy, another retail outlet.

The Backstreet group members didn't hide their hopes of beating *Nsync's record in the lead-up to the album release.

A.J. told Teen People that he expected to break *Nsync's record the first week out, although he backtracked at a press conference last week.

"I was trying to think optimistically ... It's not about quantity, it's about quality of the actual music. But materialistically, it'd be nice to break new records and start a whole new trend again," he said.

But, as a marketing co-ordinator for Virgin Megastores pointed out to MTV, even if Backstreet doesn't break *Nsync's record, the album will still be a number one seller and, therefore, a success.

In more Backstreet news, the group recently announced their upcoming dates and venues for the North American leg of their upcoming tour: