BOSS’ BALL IS BEST

Bruce Springsteen may have ended Adele’s 23-week non-consecutive reign at #1 with the chart-topping debut of his new album, Wrecking Ball, but the real winner is Columbia’s Team Stringer/Barnett, which nabs the top two slots on this week’s HITS Top 50.

The Boss’ total of 201k was enough to turn back Adele’s 192k, with the rest of the Top 5 dominated by three Capitol/EMI titles on sale for 25 cents at Google and Amazon in Now 41 (#5-3, +269%), Capitol Nashville’s Lady Antebellum (#23-4, +519%) and Coldplay (#25-5, +467%).

RCA’s Whitney Houston Greatest Hits (#6) shared the Top 10 with two other sale titles, both from the Young Money/Cash Money/Universal Republic label in Drake (#11-7, +127%) and Lil Wayne (#42-8, +189%).

The rest of the leader board is completed by Capitol Nashville/EMI’s Luke Bryan EP, which enters at #9 and XL/Columbia’s Adele debut, 19 (#10).

Mom + Pop/RED’s Andrew Bird (#17), and Nickelodeon/Columbia’s Big Time Rush soundtrack (#41) are the only other chart newcomers.

Among the re-entries benefiting from online sale prices are Interscope’s Lana Del Rey (#31) and Glassnote’s Mumford & Sons (#32), while Mercury Nashville/Interscope’s Scotty McCreery (#43), Warner Bros. Nashville’s Blake Shelton (#46) and Big Machine’s Taylor Swift (#47) all returned to the chart.

Other double-digit gainers include Watertower Music’s Project X soundtrack (#19-11, +43%), Fairfax/Universal Republic’s Gotye (#14-12, +19%), Capitol Nashville/EMI’s Eric Church (#44-27, +18%) and Nonesuch/WB’s The Black Keys (#28-24, +11%).

This week, Syco/Columbia X Factor U.K. finalists One Direction and Columbia’s Ting Tings hit retail, with Columbia’s The Shins and Big Machine/Universal Republic’s The Hunger Games soundtrack coming March 20.