5 Seconds of Summer Sneaks to No. 2 In U.S. With ‘5SOS5’

5 Seconds of Summer simmers with 5SOS5, which just misses out on the U.S. chart crown.

The album, the pop-rock bands’ fifth, debuts at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart with 48,000 equivalent album units, Billboard reports.

That’s behind Un Verano Sin Ti (87,000 equivalent album units) by Latin star Bad Bunny, who’s enjoying a spell in the mainstream spotlight thanks to his starring role in the comedy-action film Bullet Train.

5SOS5 was particularly popular on CD. Of the total sum, album sales comprise 36,000, according to Billboard, and streaming equivalent albums (SEA) units came to 12,000, equaling 15.82 million on-demand official streams of its songs.

U.S. promotions for the new album have included a late-night performance of album track “Bad Omens” on Late Night with Seth Meyers.

5 Seconds of Summer now boasts six top 10 albums in the United States, the world’s biggest recorded music market. None of their full-length studio albums have dipped below No. 2 (2015 live set LIVESOS peaked at No.13).

Indeed, the group was on a red-hot streak early on when their first three LPs – 5 Seconds of Summer (2014), Sounds Good Feels Good (2015) and Youngblood (2018) — all blasted to No. 1.

With that effort, 5SOS became the first Australian act with three No. 1 albums on the U.S. chart, and extended their record as the only band (not vocal group) to start at No. 1 with their first three full-length studio LPs.

5SOS was denied a fourth consecutive No. 1 in 2020 with CALM, which opened at No. 2 after thousands of copies were accidentally shipped early.

In a story published at the time on Billboard, the CALM CDs were “inadvertently fulfilled to customers prior to the album’s actual release date,” a blunder that saw the album open at No. 62 (thanks to those early releases), before flying No. 2.

Had the direct-to-fan copies been counted towards the correct chart, Luke Hemmings, Michael Clifford, Calum Hood and Ashton Irwin would have comfortably snagged the title.

On this occasion, with almost 40,000 chart units separating Bad Bunny from 5SOS at the top of the survey, there can be no question. 

5SOS5, the Sydneysiders’ first independent release through BMG, hit No. 1 in the U.K. and Australia.