Lady Gaga tops Billboard Top 40 U.S. Money Makers for 2010

Billboard magazine has announced their fifth annual Money Makers ranking, listing the artists who made the most money in the U.S.

The ranking includes how much each artist made NET (not gross) from touring, physical and digital albums and tracks, tethered music downloads, streaming services and video streams. Because they wanted to be sure they were consistent across all artists, they have limited their survey to just U.S. tour, music and other revenue sources (unlike in past years when international tours were included). This "explains why acts like U2, AC/DC and Metallica, which spent much of 2010 touring international markets, aren't included in this ranking."

Topping this year's list was a woman who was inescapable, Lady Gaga. Her tour brought in $23.8 million while music sales added $5.7 million. She was followed by Bon Jovi, who had the biggest tour of the year and Roger Waters who may have had one of the most complex.

The third biggest veteran on the list was the Eagles whose tour saw some cancellations due to poor ticket sales but was overall deemed a success as most of their $18 million take for the year came from that source (they also sold 371,000 albums and 1.2 million digital tracks). Paul McCartney was the fourth biggest of the vets, netting $12.9 million from his U.S. appearances and selling 617,000 albums (including his share from the Beatles' catalog).

Here are the top five followed by all the veteran artists on the list:

•01. Lady Gaga ($30,556,342)
•02. Bon Jovi ($30,441,776)
•03. Roger Waters ($24,489,675)
•04. Dave Matthews Band ($23,942,353)
•05. Justin Bieber ($22,492,565)
•08. Eagles ($18,304,214)
•10. Paul McCartney ($14,180,842)
•11. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers ($13,997,727)
•20. Eric Clapton ($10,230,660)
•22. Cher ($9,613,175)
•25. Carole King ($9,131,527)
•26. James Taylor ($8,995,614)
•27. Rush ($8,990,258)
•31. George Strait ($7,351,898)
•32. Reba McEntire ($7,199,374)
•33. Elton John ($7,160,887)
•37. Michael Jackson ($4,766,283)


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