TEA

TEA TOTALING: While Barbra Streisand’s 196k bow gave Columbia an easy win in frontline share this week, Republic managed to eke out a win in the TEA battle led by Tim McGraw’s #4 album debut, with 53k, and massed grrrl power on the singles side (see next item), adding up to a track equivalent of 75k albums. But that total of 128k falls short of the Babs number, so Rob Stringer’s squad takes both ends of the double header. To be honest, the above sales totals don’t provide the full picture in terms of this measuring stick, though they do happen to tell the tale in this instance. Generally speaking, though, the oft-used Facebook relationship description—it’s complicated—could also be used to describe TEA. (9/25a)