HOT DAY FOR COLDPLAY, AS BIZ ENJOYS BACK-TO-BACK HUGE DEBUTS

Coldplay's fourth album, Viva La Vida, is rolling to #1 on this week’s chart with sales expected to hit 725k. The Capitol band continues a dramatic uptick for the music biz, following the huge bow last week by Universal Motown rapper Lil Wayne. These two consecutive humungous debuts represent a big and much-needed positive for an industry in dire need of something to crow about.

Sales at the iTunes Store will be a major contributor to Viva La Vida’s sales tally, with the album expected to more than double the previous record total of first-week iTunes album downloads set by Jack Johnson earlier this year with 140k. Not a bad return for Apple's $25 million TV marketing campaign, which featured the title track from the album.

Meanwhile, “Viva La Vida” and Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” are the top two singles in the U.S., marking the first time Capitol has had the #1-2 slots in the same week since Sept. 2, 1967, when Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe” led the chart, and the Beatles’ “All You Need is Love” was runner-up.

Meanwhile, I.B. Bad notes that in another example of perfect timing, Jason Flom has scored again with the breakout of his discovery Katy Perry, whose debut album may hit this week's Top 10, and this timely reminder of his strengths at finding and nurturing talent has led to the possibility that Flom may stay on at EMI after all, possibly working with some of the developing artists he’s signed in a new venture, a la Clive Davis’ founding of J after exiting Arista. If so, will his longtime lieutenant Lee Trink be part of it?