Duets before the dueling

R. KELLY and Jay-Z’s tour may have fizzled, but their new “Unfinished Business” album sizzled, selling 215,000 copies its first week in stores to top the nation’s pop album chart.

The collection, consisting of tracks left over from sessions for their 2002 album “Best of Both Worlds,” soundly trumped rapper Trick Daddy’s “Thug Matrimony,” which debuts at No. 2 on sales of 145,000 copies.

The bad news from the road -- Kelly filed a $75-million breach-of-contract lawsuit Monday after Jay-Z charged that his tour mate had shown up late and canceled three performances on short notice -- doesn’t bode well to promote the follow-up to the flop “Both Worlds” CD.

That highly anticipated meeting of one of rap’s hottest acts with the hit-making R&B; singer-songwriter sank upon arriving just as Kelly was arrested on felony child pornography charges stemming from a videotape allegedly showing him having sex with an underage girl.

Reviewing “Unfinished Business” for The Times, Richard Cromelin wrote: “Besides failing to combine the substantial sales power of its stars into the expected mega-draw, [‘Both Worlds’] somehow managed to neutralize them artistically. This collection of benchwarmers doesn’t do much to improve the chemistry.”

Emo-punk band Simple Plan arrives at No. 3 with its “Still Not Getting Any” album, which posted first-week sales of 139,000. The other new arrival in the Top 10 is Michael McDonald’s R&B; collection, “Motown Two,” which sold 70,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan.