A VERY METAL HOLIDAY CHART

Metallica bolts over the finish line with a big #1 bow on both our SPS and Album Sales charts this week, while Bruno Mars and Miranda Lambert also notch sizable bows and the vocal whiz kids of Pentatonix get a big holiday bump. Information is limited during this holiday week, so allow for a greater than usual margin of error. Which is exactly what we said when we opened that last bottle.

With 306k SPS, Metallica's new one (on their own Blackened imprint) is the resounding chart victor; WMG's Bruno Mars, with a hot-selling and streaming single and some big TV looks, takes the silver medal with 226k, followed by RCA Nashville's Lambert at #3 with 146k.

With the turkey now in sandwich form and the Christmas displays proliferating, RCA's Pentatonix fa-la-la their way to #4 with 86k, a 64% spike (their prior Xmas outing, That's Christmas to Me, sits at #14). Pearl's Garth Brooks, meanwhile, remains in the Top 5 after last week's #2 SPS/#1 album debut for his big ol' box set. Brooks and Trisha Yearwood also jump #12-8 with their Yuletide duets set.

Epic's A Tribe Called Quest slides #1-6 but notches another 55k.

The Top 20's remaining debuts are Republic's DNCE and Jordan Smith (#16 and #17, respectively; the latter with a holiday offering), Disney's Moana (#18) and SYCO/Columbia's U.K. champs Little Mix (#19).

All eyes now turn to the freshly released Starboy by XO/Republic's The Weeknd, which looks set to deliver all kinds of big numbers next week.

Stay tuned for updates.