CHART STORY:
25 ’S HIGH-FIVE

Queen Adele’s reign continues, as 25 (XL/Columbia) remains atop the HITS Album Sales Chart with 665k and the Sales Plus Streaming (SPS) Chart with 700k. That’s more than the rest of the Top 5 combined, and brings the album past the 5m mark in just three weeks.

Parlophone’s Coldplay scores the highest-charting debut, landing at #2 with 198k for A Head Full of Dreams. The band's 2014 set, Ghost Stories, bowed with 383k.

RCA’s a cappella wunders, Pentatonix, round out the Top 3 with 2014’s platinum-plus That’s Christmas to Me, which should be putting gifts under Nipper's tree throughout the season. Also note that their self-titled release, which arrived in October, sells on at #14.

Chris Stapleton’s Traveller (Mercury Nashville) continues to rise, moving to #8 after being honored with a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year, along with several nods in the country categories.

As for the rest of the debuts, RCA’s G-Eazy (#4), Capitol’s Troye Sivan (#6) and Def Jam’s Rick Ross (#7) all land in the Top 15.

Meanwhile, Justin Bieber’s Purpose has proven to be an absolute monster at SPS. The RBMG/Def Jam superstar continues to hold strong at #3 on the SPS chart with 144k thanks to streaming and single sales. In album sales alone, he stands tall at #5 with 72k in his fourth week out. Bieber fever is real. You have been warned.

Outside the Top 15, J. Cole—who released Dreamville mixtape Revenge of the Dreamers II (Interscope) in a sneak attack move—lands at #23. If you’ve been smoking too much Blue Dream and are unaware, Dreamville is the label that the acclaimed hip-hop artist founded a few years back. The set features a handful of the label’s artists, but Cole is only featured on two of the nine tracks.

Republic’s Kid Cudi—who surprised fans by dropping the digital version of his Speedin’ Bullet to Heaven early—appears at #30.

All music nerds should be aware that The Ties That Bind: The River Collection, a comprehensive look at Bruce Springsteen’s River era, bowed at #17. The deluxe package includes a four-CD set of 52 tracks with some unreleased material, as well as three DVDs with four hours of never-before-seen video and a coffee-table book of 200 rare or previously unseen photos and memorabilia. Close your mouth, buddy. You’re drooling on your keyboard.

Streeting this week are albums from RCA’s R. Kelly, Def Jam’s August Alsina and Arista Nashville/RCA’s Cam.

And, of course, allegedly streeting soon (or not) is Rihanna’s ANTI. Stay tuned.