NEW YEAR, NEW NUMBERS, SAME QUEEN

End-of-the-year sales numbers have rolled in for our first chart story of 2016. For the week ending 12/31, XL/Columbia’s Adele topped the HITS Album Sales Chart with 306k, bringing 25’s 2015 total to approximately 7.5m. Predecessor 21 also held strong at #16, tacking on another 17k to its 11.4m RTD.

Justin Bieber’s Purpose (RBMG/Def Jam) continued to prove that its remarkable staying power is a force to be reckoned with. The Biebs pulled in another 114k, down a mere 21%, securing the #2 spot with ease. It’s also worth noting that, at presstime, “Love Yourself” is #1 at iTunes and “Sorry” is #3.

Boosted by the sale pricing and gift card sales, twenty one pilots jump into the Top 3, scoring 52k for Blurryface, which dropped in May. Their 2013 release, Vessel, even re-entered the chart at #9 with 22k.

At #4 and #5, meanwhile, One Direction’s Made in the AM (SYCO/Columbia) and Chris Stapleton’s Traveller (Mercury Nashville) earned 43k and 38k, respectively.

As for other superstars who made 2015 their bitch, Taylor Swift’s 1989 (Big Machine) moved to #7 with 28k, while The Weeknd’s Beauty Behind the Madness (XO/Republic) broke back into the Top 10 with 26k.

Powered by a $7.99 sale at iTunes, RCA’s Bryson Tiller re-entered the chart with a 75% sales bump, as T R A P S O U L appeared at #9 with 26k.

Carrie Underwood’s Greatest Hits: Decade #1 (19/Arista Nashville) also re-entered the chart with 18k at #16 thanks to a 99-cent sale at Google Play. That, along with her most recent release, Storyteller (#24, 13k), gives her two albums in the Top 25. The only other artists with two in the Top 25 were Adele and RCA’s Pentatonix. The latter saw 2014’s That’s Christmas to Me at #22 and their recently released Pentatonix at #23.

Other beneficiaries of the holiday spirit included Capitol’s Troye Sivan (#17), Frank Sinatra (#20), Capitol’s Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band (#37), Columbia/Legacy’s Journey (#40), Roc Nation/Columbia’s J. Cole (#41), Def Jam’s Logic (#46), Disney’s Guardians of the Galaxy OST (#47), RCA Nashville’s Chris Young (#48) and RCA’s G-Eazy (#50); FYI, all the titles were chart re-entries.

The force was also strong with, well, The Force Awakens soundtrack. The John Williams set—released via Disney—earned 28k in its second week out, landing at #8. If you’re like us, you spent the entire holiday break either at the movie theater re-watching the latest Star Wars installment, which has already grossed more than $1.5b worldwide, or smoking enough pot ‘til you can do nothing else but roll around on the ground pretending to be BB-8.

In case you were too busy doing that (or lathering yourself in buckets of champagne) and were unaware, the debut full-length from Columbia’s Rachel Platten dropped with the Times Square ball on New Year’s Day.

Streeting this Friday, however, is a new album from Columbia’s David Bowie, along with Capitol’s Straight Outta Compton soundtrack; the DVD for the latter is out tomorrow.