FLORENCE MAKES A BIG, BEAUTIFUL BOW

All systems were go for Flo this week.

Republic British rock diva Florence Welch and her band the Machine jammed the pedal to the metal, scoring a chart-topping bow on the HITS Building Album Sales Chart with a solid 128k, significantly better than their previous album in 2011, which debuted with 105k and wound up breaking 1m.

How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful also ran away with the Sales Plus Streaming (SPS) Chart competition, pushing the tally to 138k. Two other debuts landed in the Top 5. Living legends and old pals Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard took the #4 slot with their dual tribute to influences Django Reinhart and Jimmie Rodgers (Legacy), breaking 30k. That was 7k better than Mercury Nashville new-country representative Billy Currington, who trotted to #5.

Sandwiched between Flo & Co. and the country contingent was Taylor Swift’s indefatigable 1989 (Big Machine), which was flat with 34k, and last week’s chart-topper, RCA’s A$AP Rocky, who wound up at #3 following a 74% drop.

The top three sellers occupy the same positions on the SPS chart, followed by WB’s debuting Jason Derulo (#7 in sales) and Atlantic’s Ed Sheeran (#11), fueled by hit singles—duh.

Derulo was edged for #6 by Def Jam’s Lil Durk in his first week, Durk totaling 23.5k to Jason’s 22.6—just 200 units more than UMe’s Pitch Perfect ST. Fueled by Ramen’s Twenty One Pilots stayed in the Top 10, selling just under 20k (-30%) in their third week at retail. Indie rapper Dom Kennedy (on the wryly named label The Other People’s Money Company) was the sixth Top 10 debut, just 56 puny units behind Twenty One Pilots. Dropping this week are new releases from WB arena rockers Muse, Republic’s Of Monsters and Men and Natalie La Rose, Republic Nashville’s buzzing A Thousand Horses, a live set from Blue Note’s Ryan Adams and UMe’s “Super Deluxe” reissue of the Rolling Stones 1971 masterpiece Sticky Fingers.