NOW IS THE TIME!

Now That’s What I Call Music 49, the Now franchise’s latest agglomeration of Pop hits in one convenient package, claims the top spot on the HITS Album Sales Chart this week, in a decisive victory for nearly everyone who’s on the radio. The set moved 96k in its debut week.

Why plop down cash for the comp instead of cherry-picking singles? For $9.99 per download and a couple bucks more for the CD, you get 21 hits. Chart-music consumers are clearly doing the math.

Disney’s Frozen scored 88k, good for #2 and down just 6%; the album should cross the 1 million mark very soon, and Oscar-related visibility for the film and Best Song nominee "Let It Go" will likely extend its snowy dominion.

Bruno Mars’ Super Bowl bounce is reflected in earnest this week, as his Unorthodox Jukebox jumps to #3 with 75k (+84%). Meanwhile, prior release Doo-Wops & Hooligans vaults #28-10 with 23k, +88%.

Motown’s Toni Braxton-Babyface duet, Love Marriage & Divorce, bows at #4 with a strong 65k.

Columbia’s hipster duo Broken Bells round out the Top 5 with the debut of After the Disco, which rings up 43k. Bowing at #6 is SYCO/Columbia’s Little Mix, whose Salute moves 40k.

Columbia’s Beyoncé (37K, -25%), Lava/Republic’s Lorde (35K, -48%) and the Grammy Nominees anthology (31K, -63%) round out the Top 10.

There were declines this week that reflected the drop-off after huge Grammy gains, but we won’t dwell on the negative.

Who’s up? Farther down the chart we find Capitol Nashville’s Luke Bryan (#16) seeing a 29% bump for his Crash My Party, SYCO/Columbia’s One Direction (#17) up 8% and Republic Nashville’s Florida Georgia Line (#18) gaining 11%. RCA’s R. Kelly (#24) also sees an 11% increase for the brilliantly titled Black Panties.

Streeting today is EMI Nashville’s Outlaw Country sensation Eric Church, whose hard-rocking, well-reviewed The Outsiders is looking bigger than a monster truck. Next week brings the new one from Barsuk/Republic’s PoMo pair Phantogram, and on 2/25 we’ll see the arrival of TDE/Aftermath/Interscope artist Schoolboy Q (best known as a member of Kendrick Lamar’s crew).

Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re going to get back to NBC’s Olympics coverage. If we miss our ice dancing we get cranky.