The list, compiled by measuring touring revenue, music sales, publishing royalties and other streaming and on-demand figures, was topped by Madonna with $34.5 million. Like many of the acts on the list, her gaudy figures were goosed by concert revenues, in her case the blockbuster MDNA tour, which was 2012’s biggest outing with $305 million in grosses.
Madge earned a hefty $32 million of that cash, combined with $1.5 million from album sales. Bruce Springsteen ($33.4 million), Roger Waters ($21.1 million), Van Halen ($20.1 million), Kenny Chesney ($19.1 million), the Dave Matthews Band ($18.9 million), Tim McGraw ($18.3 million) and Jason Aldean ($17.5 million) rounded out the rest of the top eight.
Thanks to their massive Mylo Xyloto tour and strong album and singles sales, Coldplay
cracked the top 10 at #9 with $17.3 million and Bieber snuck in at #10 with $15.9 million. JB racked up $2.6 million in physical album sales, along with another $806,000 in digital album sales and $1.8 million in digital track sales as well as $10 million from his
sold-out Believe arena tour.
One artist who didn’t rely on touring to bank big bucks was
Adele, who hit #11 with $13.9 million thanks to physical album sales of more than four
million in 2012 and more than 1.2 million digital sales. Swift came in behind Lady Antebellum ($12.9 million), Celine Dion ($12.9 million) and Brad Paisley ($12.8 million) at #15 with more than $12.6 million in earnings from the sales of more than four million physical and digital albums and
a mind-blowing 15.6 million digital tracks as well as tour revenue.
Underwood was hard on her heels at #16 with $11.9 million, also with a combination
of strong digital sales and live dates. Drake’s Club Paradise tour helped him nab the #24 slot ($9.5 million), earning him the majority of his haul, along with the 8.8 million digital
track sales from Take Care, which brought in another $1.6 million.
Making their debut at #30 were One Direction, who banked $7.9 million thanks to
sales of two million copies of their two #1 albums. Grammy winners the Black Keys came in at #32 with $7.3 million on the back of their first headlining arena tour, which grossed them $4.2 million. Maroon 5 were just behind at #33 with $7.1 million, mostly
thanks to sales of 13.3 million digital tracks, which banked them $2.4 million, as well as
album sales for Overexposed.
Jay-Z drifted in at #34 with $7 million, most of which ($4.7 million) came from his Watch
The Throne tour dates with Kanye West. Helping to round out the list were Album of the Year Grammy winners Mumford & Sons, who hit #39 with $6.1 million, mostly from
the $3.7 million they earned off sales of Babel.
Culled from MTV news
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