Madonna Is Music’s Biggest Money Maker

Madonna has taken out the number one position in Billboard’s latest Biggest Money Makers list.

The Biggest Money Makers list is a Top 40 ranking of the highest earning musicians in the previous year. This year, the top spots in the list were mainly driven by revenue gained from live performances, with Madonna holding the top rank with a cool $34,577,308.62 largely thanks to her 2012 MDNA tour. According to Billboard, the MDNA tour grossed around $304 million in its 88 stop schedule, with $32 million of that going into Madonna’s pocket. The MDNA album earned around $1.5 million in digital and hard copy sales.

This is the second time the Queen of Pop has been crowned Queen of the Moneymakers, also ranking number one in 2008, earning some $242 million following the record breaking success of her Sticky and Sweet tour.

The 2013 Billboard Money Makers was a list for the music veterans, and, as Billboard notes, most of the oldies who ranked in the Top Ten did so despite underperforming albums.

Bruce Springsteen came in at number two with $33,443,606.64, 92 percent of that figure coming from Springsteen’s phenomenally successful E Street Band tours. Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters and Halen came through at positions 3 and 4 on their backs of their respective tours, while country music star, Kenny Chesney, took the number 5 spot following the success of his recent tour with Tim McGraw. McGraw ranked at number 7. Teen pop sensation, Justin Bieber just snuck through to the Top 10, ranking in the tenth position with $15,944,293.10. Justin Bieber had other reasons to be celebrated by Billboard this year, being named the first musician with five Billboard No. 1 albums before the age of 19.

Last year, Taylor Swift topped the chart. This year, Swift came in at number 15 with the drop coming, as NME reports, due to the fact that Swift has not been touring. Madonna was the only woman in the Top 10 of the Billboard Money Makers List.