February 12, 2009

Madonna, Bon Jovi, Springsteen Made Big Bucks in ’08

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Billboard magazine has ranked the top 20 biggest money-makers in music this year, and I assume they don’t mean, um, the body part one is supposed to shake. No, no, they mean musicians who’ve made the most dollars, or, more likely, euros, and maybe even rubles, in 2008. Madonna topped the list by a wide margin, earning a total of over $242 million, with rockers Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen just about tied at $157 and $156 million, respectively.

Not surprisingly, says Billboard, touring is your best bet for the big cash these days, and every performer on their top 20 list had major tours this year. But perhaps more surprising is the apparent gap between album sales and tour income: Madonna’s 2008 album, Hard Candy, was only the 50th-best-selling of the year in the US. But that didn’t stop concert-goers, as her continuing “Sticky & Sweet” tour grossed nearly $230 million, not including the $18 million worth of tour merchandise sold. Jeez, and I’m stoked when I get 50 bucks for DJing. Anyway, the full list of the most immune-to-economic-woes musicians after the jump.
1. Madonna: $242,176,466
2. Bon Jovi: $157,177,766
3. Bruce Springsteen: $156,327,964
4. The Police: $109,976,894
5. Celine Dion: $99,171,237
6. Kenny Chesney: $90,823,990
7. Neil Diamond: $82,174,000
8. Rascall Flatts: $63,522,160
9. Jonas Brothers: $62,638,814
10. Coldplay: $62,175,555
11. The Eagles: $61,132,213
12. Lil Wayne: $57,441,334
13. AC/DC: $56,505,296
14. Michael Buble: $50,257,364
15. Miley Cyrus: $48,920,806
16. Taylor Swift: $45,588,730
17. Journey: $44,787,328
18. Billy Joel: $44,581,010
19. Mary J. Blige: $43,472,850
20. Kanye West: $42,552,402

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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