I’m not saying Taylor Swift uses $100 bills as tissues to wipe away her crocodile tears when she’s channeling her Gyllenhaal hate for another chart-topping hit, but that’s exactly what I’m saying. With one minor correction: they’re actually $1,000 bills. T-Swift has money coming out the wazoo, which is a surgery she could afford, because according to Billboard, the country-pop star was the top-earning musician of the past 12 months. We’re ALL red with envy. Here’s how they figured all the money-stuff:
The data used to compile Money Makers was supplied by Nielsen SoundScan, Nielsen BDS and Billboard Boxscore. Artists are ranked by U.S. earnings, calculated from touring, recorded- music sales, publishing royalties and revenue from digital music and video streaming. Due to a lack of data, revenue from sponsor- ship, merchandising and synchronization isn’t included. For album and track sales, Billboard assumed a royalty rate of 20% of retail, minus producers’ fees. Billboard treated all streaming revenue as derived from licensing deals and split that to calculate the artist’s take. Billboard applied statutory mechanical rates for album and track sales and Copyright Royalty Board-determined rates or -approved formulas for streaming. For labels’ direct deals with interactive services, Billboard used a blended rate of $0.00525 for audio and $0.005 for video streams. Billboard subtracted a manager’s fee of 10% For box office, each artist was credited with 34% of the gross, typically what’s left after the promoter and manager’s cuts and other costs are subtracted. (Via)
And the top-ten:
1. Taylor Swift ($39,699,575.60)
2. Kenny Chesney ($32,956,240.70)
3. Justin Timberlake ($31,463,297.03)
4. Bon Jovi ($29,436,801.04)
5. The Rolling Stones ($26,225,121.71)
6. Beyoncé ($24,429,176.86)
7. Maroon 5 ($22,284,754.07)
8. Luke Bryan ($22,142,235.98)
9. P!nk ($20,072,072.32)
10. Fleetwood Mac ($19,123,101.98)
If Stevie N!cks and P!nk combined their earnings, they’d still be behind Swift. Excuse me, Sw!ft.
