Beyonce earned $US105 million ($A147 million) throughout 2017 (actually from June 2016 to ’17), through a combination of record sales from her critically-acclaimed Lemonade, and tickets and merch sales from the subsequent Formation world tour.
She’s far ahead of her closest rival (although ‘rival’ seems the wrong word here) Adele, whose steady sales of her three albums — including her 2015 effort 25 — and massive world tour netted her $US69 million.
Taylor Swift enjoyed a comparatively quiet period in 2017, ‘only’ earning $US44m, a paltry sum considering the $170m she pulled in 2016. Of course, her Reputation record has been out for less than a fortnight, so we expect her true 2017 earnings to have swelled substantially by the year’s end.