Music sales, which seems all-bad, all-the-time these days, just gets worse.

According to Nielsen SoundScan, the third quarter of 2008 finished with 297.9 million albums sold so far this year, which is down 12% from 2007’s totals at this time.

A boatload of music, about 200 million albums, will need to be sold through the rest of the year to break even with last year’s 500.5 million final tally.

That puts the pressure on a number of high-profile fall CDs to sell well.

Here are ten CDs we think can do the job.

– Kanye West, “808’s & Heartbreak”

– AC/DC, “Black Ice”

– Beyonce, Untitled

– Nickelback, “Dark Horse”

– Kenny Chesney, “Lucky Old Sun”

– Britney Spears, “Circus”

– John Legend, “Evolver”

– Pink, “Funhouse”

– Guns ‘N Roses, “Chinese Democracy”

– Taylor Swift, “Fearless”

– “High School Musical 3″ soundtrack

– Fall Out Boy, “Folie A Deux”