Rihanna
$7,660,833
Though Rihanna's sixth studio album, Talk That Talk, lagged in its first week compared with previous release Loud, which bowed at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 with 207,000 units sold in December 2010 (Talk That Talk came in at No. 3 on the Nov. 30, 2011, chart with 197,000), together the two projects gave Rihanna a strong 2011. Thanks to a slate of hits-including Billboard Hot 100 No. 1s "What's My Name?," "S&M" and "We Found Love"-she sold 14 million digital tracks and 1.5 million albums. On the road, Rihanna's exposure to the domestic market was limited: Of the shows reported to Boxscore (11), she grossed $7.1 million and sold 111,704 tickets.
7.1 million from 11 shows, thats pretty damn good if you ask me.
Adele would have slayed harder if her tour continued.
Oh, and I'm happy to see Sade on the list. Only they could take long breaks, come back and be accepted as if they never left. That's what you call power.
And her tours, her albums and her perfume sold more than your fave's. And they didn't count her full dates and the revenue from her contract with Armani, Vita Coco and Rebl Fleur. So what you call your fave? Slaviest slave or something else?
Aside from the tour, which I think still accounts a huge percentage of Rihanna's earnings for the year, one would think her massive single/album sales would compensate for the rest.
It's really not surprising Rihanna doesn't make much money from her single sales.
Artists only get somewhere around 30% of the earnings from a download. If she were a songwriter, she'd get an extra cut of the 30% songwriters' percentage. That's why other artists tend to make more than she does from downloads specifically.