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How These Independent Artists Reached No. 1 On The iTunes Chart

This article is more than 8 years old.

Earlier today, independent artist Jack & Jack hit No. 1 on the iTunes album chart. Jack & Jack's four-track EP, Calibraska, is currently charting ahead of rapper Future's DS2 and Taylor Swift's 1989. What's more: they uploaded their album using DistroKid, a service which lets them keep every cent of the profits.

The Vine-famous teenage stars (5.7 million followers) boast over a million YouTube followers for their melodic hip-hop. The duo are not the first social media stars to top the iTunes album charts -- Vine celebrity Shawn Mendes' debut landed at No. 1  after he signed to Island Records -- but it is perhaps the first to come from an unsigned artist with an independent distributor.

Designed for use by bedroom musicians, DistroKid lets users upload unlimited tracks to iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, Google Play and Tidal for just $19.99 a year. As I wrote in 2013, DistroKid doesn’t touch the musicians’ profits and users get to keep all the royalties once the respective distributors take their cut.

"The only other way to upload to stores is to be signed to a record label or use a distributor, and every other distributor charges per upload rather than a flat fee," explained founder Philip Kaplan , who started email service provider TinyLetter and Internet advertising network AdBrite before launching DistroKid.

An album uploaded to iTunes through DistroKid usually reaches the store within four hours -- far faster than its competitors who take days or weeks to process songs. It's also cheaper than competitors such as TuneCore, which charges $29.99 per album for the first year, with subsequent years costing $49.99. Sites like CDBaby also keep $4 per CD sold and 9% of all distribution sales.

Since launching two years ago, DistroKid has grown to be used by over 25,000 musicians, releasing about 200 albums -- some 2,000 songs -- a day.

"One of the things that’s happened is we have taken off with YouTubers," said Kaplan, who remains the company's only full-time employee. "If you're a YouTuber, you put up a new song or video every week which would cost you thousands of dollars to upload to iTunes. But if it's free to put out, you enable hits that might not otherwise have been released."

Jack & Jack, real names Jack Johnson and Jack Gilinsky, are case in point. The duo, likely unknown to anyone born before 1995, are part of a new generation of stars who can score millions of fans from social media without ever breaching adult consciousness.

With 1.1 million Twitter followers, they can also sell thousands of records -- and keep the profits. Apple typically retains a 30% cut of each sale, with the rest going to the record label and artist. For a signed artist whose album costs $11, that could mean a $1.50 personal take home per copy. Using DistroKid, this might increase to some $7.70 an album (far less for Jack & Jack, whose album retails for $3.99). Also key for YouTube stars: DistroKid has made it legal to sell covers through its service, so singers can sell their versions.

Calibraska is not the first iTunes hit for DistroKid's distribution: rapper iHeartMemphis' "Hit the Quan" is creeping up the hip-hop charts. Its success pales in comparison to catchy teen MC Silento, who uploaded his "Watch Me" single to TuneCore at the beginning of 2015. Silento's viral dance-driven song peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. (He signed to Capitol Records in May.)

For independent artists, alternate distribution -- and social currency -- can reap rewards.