CHART STORY: REPUTATION REMAINS

With just south of 158k, Taylor Swift’s reputation (Big Machine) holds at #1 on the Sales Plus Streaming (SPS) Chart for yet another week, its third. For those keeping score, at this point in the game, it looks like she’s got a solid shot at hitting 2m by the year’s end. That said, the only debut to make the Top 35 this week belongs to Fabolous & Jadakiss, whose collaborative project Friday on Elm Street (Def Jam), bows at #14 with around 31k.

Naturally, following the likes of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, an array of holiday-themed sets are making moves as yuletide looms. Most notably, Pentatonix’s A Pentatonix Christmas (RCA) climbs #5-2. The group’s That’s Christmas to Me, meanwhile, jumps #33-17. And Michael Bublé’s Christmas (Reprise) flies #22-9, while Gwen Stefani’s You Make It Feel Like Christmas (Interscope) goes #44-21. Josh Groban’s Noel (Reprise) and Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas (Columbia) re-enter the chart at #29 and #30, respectively.

Once more, the Magic of Chanukah anthology fails to crack the Top 1,000.

Atlantic’s Bruno Mars, who is up for three of the Big Four Grammy Awards (Record, Song and Album of the Year) and whose CBS special aired on 11/29, sees his 24k Magic re-enter as well. That can be found at #25.

As for SPS marketshare, UMG leads with 48%, WMG follows with 25% and SME is #3 with 20%, while the indies trail with 7%.

Streeting this week are albums from Interscope’s U2, who are expected to dethrone Taylor’s reputation with their Songs of Experience, Mercury Nashville’s Chris Stapleton, ByStorm/RCA’s Miguel and S-Curve/BMG’s Andy Grammer.

Now go ahead and dive into the Jingle Juice already. Pace yourself, though, kids. We’ve still got 24 days to go before the fat man gets away with breaking and entering again.