Billboard released the weekly chart details for last week yesterday and holding tight at number three is Paul McCartney's debut for Starbucks Corp.'s (NASDAQ: SBUX) Hear Music, Memory Almost Full. The nice surprise in the announcement was the news that the Traveling Wilburys reissue set debuted at number nine with over 78,000 copies sold last week. In the United Kingdom, the set debuted at number one in the Albums Chart. The UK charting is much higher than either albums in the set originally achieved upon release in 1988 and 1990 respectively.

I first blogged on BloggingStocks about the Traveling Wilburys set in April, commenting that a nice chart placement for this release might boost Warner Music Group Corp. (NYSE: WMG), but more importantly help revitalize the reissue "series" it is effectively part of: the George Harrison catalog. The debut is higher than last year's Living in the Material World from George Harrison's early solo career, but it does not indicate any growth for Warner Music. The stock closed at $15.05 yesterday after falling from over $15.60 before the reissue came out. The two may not be directly connected, but such a strong debut for a reissue is nice, especially as WMG is rumored to bid for EMI Group PLC (LSE: EMI) soon.

The George Harrison reissue "series" (as I call it, it's not really very organized) remained unavailable on downloading services like Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iTunes until the release of the Traveling Wilburys set. With the addition of Ringo Starr's early solo catalog this means that all or portions of three of the four Beatles solo material are available to download: a nice sign for every Beatle fan hoping to download the Fab Four's catalog. Such high placement in the charts for new and reissued albums (Paul McCartney and the Traveling Wilburys) makes it clear that the band is still profitable.

Like so many summer's full of blockbuster film sequels, this summer is also full of music follow-ups. May has already seen the release of several successful new albums, most notably Linkin Park's Minutes to Midnight, which debuted at #1 in Billboard's album charts and scored the highest number of copied sold to date this year. Also released was the new Maroon 5 album, which knocked Linkin Park off the top spot this week. The most talked about new album is Paul McCartney's first on the new Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) music label Hear Music.

All three of those albums are fairly guaranteed sellers, primarily because the artists' last albums enjoyed great success. The new methods of promotion that surrounded these releases also certainly speak to the large scale of their releases. Who hasn't noticed the Paul McCartney catalog that is now available on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL)'s iTunes Store and the new album that has been available for pre-order since May 15th and still won't be released until next Tuesday. These dates and the time may mean nothing, but consider it in comparison to seeing a movie poster for the new Harry Potter movie at the theater complex.

New albums are not the only heavily marketed and promoted music products for this summer though. With the pending reissue of the Traveling Wilburys catalog in a couple of weeks, Warner Bros. is prepping another reissue to promote or at least ride in that release's coattails. Tom Petty, who was a Traveling Wilbury, is set to reissue the album he first released last summer with four new tracks. A year ago that album peaked at #4 in the album charts, so it has seen success already. Is this a ploy to strengthen Traveling Wilburys sales, or to strengthen Petty's sales alone?

The point of citing these release dates and different facts of release and success is that this summer (and pretty much every summer for the last few years) has been full of large scale music releases that resemble how we think about the big movie blockbusters. With so much talk within and outside the music industry this year about Digital Rights Management, and what labels are going to drop the technology, we can't overlook the fact that business is going on as usual.