From Beyoncé To Paul McCartney: The 10 Top-Earning Musicians Of The Decade
Dr. Dre hasn’t released an album since 2015 and hasn’t gone on tour since the turn of the millennium. His last production credit on a No. 1 hit was in 2009, when he worked the boards on Eminem’s “Crack a Bottle.” But the hip-hop superproducer still topped all other music stars in earnings this decade, pulling in an estimated $950 million thanks mostly to his roughly 20% stake in Beats, the bass-heavy headphone maker Apple bought for $3 billion in 2014.
Other stars had more traditional ways of making money. Taylor Swift was the decade’s second-biggest earner with $825 million followed by Beyoncé with $685 million, both profiting from multiple centimillion-dollar tours, several multiplatinum albums and a slew of multimillion-dollar sponsor partnerships with brands from Adidas to AT&T.
Forbes measures the industry’s top-earning musicians annually for the Celebrity 100 by looking at touring data from Pollstar, music consumption numbers from Nielsen and interviews with managers, agents and many of the stars themselves. The list doesn’t include behind-the-scenes earners such as agents, managers and promoters, nor does it deduct living expenses or taxes.
Source: Zack O'Malley Greenburg/forbes.com
