Taylor Swift may not have released a new album (yet) in 2016, but she has still been the highest-earning musician according to Forbes’ annual chart of musical moneymakers. The magazine estimates that Swift earned $170m between June 2015 and June 2016, mainly from her ongoing world tour. That put her $60m ahead of One Direction, with Adele, Madonna and Rihanna making up the top five in Forbes’ chart. The Guardian notes that the bulk of artists in the upper reaches of the list earned most of their income from touring rather than recorded music, with the exception of Adele, although ninth-placed Calvin Harris also has a fairly balanced income between recordings and live appearances: $400k a night for his Las Vegas DJ sets doesn’t hurt there. Top-ranked Swift has a number of irons in the fire too, of course: she starred in an advert for Apple Music earlier this year, and has just tied up a deal to provide footage for a show on AT&T’s new video-streaming service.
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