The Artist Who Has The #1 Album On iTunes Is Getting 100% Of The Royalties

Remember when everyone said it couldn’t be done? Remember when the old guard exclaimed “major labels are the best thing that happened to artists?” Remember when we all learned that it costs over $1 million to put out just one Rihanna song. 

Well, the Viner/YouTuber duo Jack & Jack self-released (digitally distributed by DistroKid) their debut EP Calibraska today (for much less than $1 million… like WAY less) and it went straight to #1 on iTunes. It’s currently holding strong with 1,239 reviews (averaging 5 stars) as of 1pm Pacific, above the #2 album (also released today), Jill Scott Woman (Atlantic), with 128 reviews, and the #3 album DS2 Future (Epic) released last Friday July 17th currently has 1,659 reviews.

Exact weekly sales numbers won’t be released until next Thursday. But last week’s top selling album was Tyrese Black Rose (EMI) sold just over 38,000 digital albums.

+Want To Know Who The Best Digital Distribution Company Is

As indicated by Jack & Jack‘s tweets (to their 1.4 million followers), as of 9:30am Pacific, there were nearly a half a world-wide million tweets using the hashtag #CalibraskaEP

Half a million tweets nearly! Just gettin started! #CalibraskaEP pic.twitter.com/wMW20QorRE

— J&J (@JackAndJack) July 24, 2015

Jack & Jack have a combined 14 million social media followers and to date have sold over a million songs from their 11 previous releases (all released as singles) with most of their songs  charting on various Billboard charts including the Hot 100, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop, Pop Digital, Top Twitter Tracks and Hot Rap.

“When I started DistroKid, I knew it was possible, but didn’t think it would happen so fast.” Philip Kaplan, CEO/Founder, DistroKid

DistroKid (launched October 2013) allows independent artists to release unlimited songs to most digital outlets (iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, Deezer, etc) for $20 a year. Their main competitors CD Baby charge $50 per album or $10 per song (+ 9% commission), and TuneCore (just purchased by Believe Digital) charges $50 a year per album, $10 a year per song (0% commission), Zimbalam (also owned by Believe) charges $30 per album $20 per single (10% commission). There are other major differences in the various digital distribution companies, like the possibility of songwriter royalty collection, SoundExchange royalty collection, YouTube royalty collection, self managed digital download stores, and other features I outlined in my independent digital distribution comparison.

+CEO War: INgrooves Blasts DistroKid. DistroKid Fires Back

Ari Herstand is a Los Angeles based singer/songwriter and the creator of the music biz advice blog, Ari’s Take. Follow him on Twitter: @aristake

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Source: Industry News