On Monday, Billboard revealed its ranking of the highest-paid musicians of the past year. Fleetwood Mac made the Top 10, ranking at #10 with gross earnings topping $19 million in 2013.
Fleetwood Mac’s numbers were fueled by a highly lucrative 2013 North American and European tour and the release of Extended Play and Deluxe and Expanded reissues of their 1977 classic album Rumours.
10. Fleetwood Mac
2013 Earnings: $19,123,101.98
As befits this classic rock mainstay, the bulk of Fleetwood Mac’s earnings came from its 2013 world tour, which covered 34 cities and take-home pay of $17.4 million. The trek’s high point included three nights at London’s O2 Arena. There, Christine McVie, 70, joined the band for the final two shows to perform “Don’t Stop” — a prelude to her coming back full-time for 2014’s Reunion Tour (that trek was potentially sidetracked due to the recent cancer diagnosis of John McVie, 68). The band also released its first new studio material in a decade, Extended Play. It reached No. 48 on the Billboard 200.
Music’s Top 40 Money Makers 2014: The Rich List
- Taylor Swift
- Kenny Chesney
- Justin Timberlake
- Bon Jovi
- Rolling stones
- Beyoncé
- Maroon 5
- Luke Bryan
- P!nk
- Fleetwood Mac
- Justin Bieber
- Bruno Mars
- One Direction
- Jason Aldean
- George Strait
- Jay Z
- Michael Bublé
- Mumford & Sons
- Dave Matthews band
- Rihanna
- Paul McCartney
- The Eagles
- Celion Dion
- Trans-Siberian Orchestra
- Phish
- Kayne West
- Blake Shelton
- John Mayer
- New Kids on the Block
- Zac Brown Band
- Imagine Dragons
- Jimmy Buffett
- Elton John
- Rascal Flatts
- Rush
- Miranda Lambert
- Lil Wayne
- Tim McGraw
- Eminem
- Carrie Underwood
METHODOLOGY: 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 percent 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 percent. For box office, each artist was credited with 34 percent of the gross, typically what’s left after the promoter and manager’s cuts and other costs are subtracted.
