CHART STORY: ADELE’S
LUCKY NUMBER SEVEN

Adele’s 25 spends its seventh consecutive week atop the HITS Album Sales Chart with 173k. The XL/Columbia starlet also held onto the #1 spot on the Sales Plus Streaming (SPS) Chart. Meanwhile, 21 charges back into the Top 15 with 15k at #12.

The mighty Justin Bieber continues to slay the competition, as Purpose (Def Jam) stands tall at #2, earning another 55k and bringing the RTD to somewhere around 1.3m. Bieber is easily the big SPS winner this week with 128k at SPS, a 73k boost from his album tally.

How has he racked up these numbers, and how does he keep growing? Find out more in a story by our own Lenny Beer and Simon Glickman.

Mercury Nashville’s Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Chris Stapleton, meanwhile, breaks into the Top 3 with Traveller, which came out in May and gained momentum after his breakout CMAs performance with Justin Timberlake (and multiple CMA trophies) in November. His beard is also said to be up for several awards.

The only new release to bow in the Top 15 belongs to Columbia’s Rachel Platten, whose Wildfire landed at #4 with 28k.

Rumors of a surprise release of upcoming Drake album Views From the 6, however premature, fueled sales of mixtape If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late (YMCMB/Republic), which jumps #37-22. Powered by sales at iTunes, Capitol Nashville’s Luke Bryan and Epic’s Meghan Trainor are the biggest gainers this week, as Kill the Lights and Title leap #26-9 and #33-15, respectively.

Streeting this week is a new album from Columbia’s David Bowie, along with UMe’s Straight Outta Compton soundtrack; the DVD for the latter was just released on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Oregon militia member Tarp Man is excited about his Songs of the Confederacy LP, but he can’t figure out where to plug in the Victrola machine.