5 Seconds of Summer storms to No. 1 with year’s third-largest debut

Last week 5 Seconds of Summer made it rain.

Scoring the year’s third-largest chart debut, the Australian boy band entered the Billboard 200 on Wednesday at No. 1, reflecting sales of 259,000 copies of its self-titled debut during the week that ended July 27, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Only Coldplay and the country singer Eric Church have started on the album chart with bigger numbers in 2014.

The news accompanied 5 Seconds of Summer’s announcement Wednesday of a North American tour -- known as the Rock Out with Your Socks Out Tour -- set to launch a full year from now, in July 2015.

Before that, though, the group will spend the next couple of months opening stadium shows for the British boy band One Direction, with which it shares a management firm. That tour is to hit the Rose Bowl for three shows Sept. 11-13.

And if that’s not enough -- surely that’s not enough? -- 5 Seconds of Summer will return to Los Angeles in November for a pair of shows at the refurbished Forum.

Other albums that entered the Billboard 200 this week include the rapper Common’s “Nobody’s Smiling,” which bowed at No. 6, and the metal act Crown the Empire’s “The Resistance: Rise of the Runaways,” which started at No. 7.

Twitter: @mikaelwood