TEA

TEA TOTALING: As it did with frontline marketshare (see 10/15 item), RED took the gold in the track-equivalent-albums competition this week, though the distribbery’s margin of victory over the labels was much slimmer by this measurement. At 8.1% (compared to 17.3% in frontline), RED was less than a percentage point north of the all but deadlocked Republic, Columbia and CMG, the three majors that have consistently battled for the top spot in recent weeks and on the year as a whole. We can call next week’s winner in both tallies early, as Republic adds around 200k units on Florida Georgia Line’s debuting album to its slew of hit singles., enumerated in the next item. (10/16a)