Let's just jump straight to it: Billboard released their list of music's 50 top-earners from 2016 (which cites US sales, publishing, and live shows). You can read it here but like Chief Keef, they're not about dramatics and begin it with the number one earner, Beyoncé. The Carter family matriarch made $62.1 million last year, primarily from touring ($54 million, compared to a relatively paltry $2 million from streaming). Who runs the world? Extremely lavish multimedia releases and similarly expensive tours. Also, yeah, girls.Speaking of which, Adele is the only other lady in the top 10, with dudes taking up the other positions. And not just any dudes, but big legacy guitar dudes like Bruce Springsteen (number three), Kenny Chesney (number ten), and Guns N' Roses (number fucking 2). However, it should be noted that Bey made about $20 million more than Axl and company, which is the highest gap in the list. Fucking rad. Again, the full list is here, and contains more surprising revelations (Future at number 17, ayyyyyyy).
Advertisement