While the pandemic had a disastrous effect on touring revenue, it lifted other royalty streams as music fans listened to more recorded music from the relative safety of their homes, through radio, streaming platforms or the turntable setups they bought with the money they ordinarily would have shelled out for concerts and festivals.
Recorded-music royalties — from sales, streaming and publishing — collectively grew 56% from $197 million in 2019 to $308 million. Individually, artist streaming royalties increased a whopping 82% year to year, from $106 million to $193 million, and accounted for just under 50% of the top 40 Money Makers’ total income. Sales royalties, digital and physical, were also up 39%, from $42 million to $59 million; a trend that continues so far this year.
The list breaks down to 22 contemporary artists and 18 heritage artists. (Only living acts were included on this list.) By genre, rock artists landed the most spots, 13, down one from last year; pop acts accounted for nine entries, down from 14; country, three spots, down from eight; and Latin, two berths, up one from 2019. (As in past rankings, DJs are included on Money Makers because they rarely report their live earnings, which constitute most of their income. In addition, deceased artists are excluded from the rankings. A story looking at how the catalogs of some of those late artists performed in 2020 is scheduled to run next week.)
The genre with the biggest gains is R&B/hip-hop, which is represented by 12 artists this year, up from three in 2019. When touring is in full bloom, heritage rockers, country artists and jam bands dominate Money Makers because of their concert grosses. In 2020, hip-hop came on strong because its artists often have a strong streaming game. On this year’s list, six hip-hop artists who didn’t make the cut for the 2019 list ranked in the top 20. Three of them — Drake, YoungBoy Never Broke Again and Lil Baby — placed in the top 10.
1. Taylor Swift: $23.8 million
Last year’s rank: —
Streaming: $10.6M
Sales: $10M
Publishing: $3.2M
Touring: $0