The highest paid musician of 2012 is …

Dr. Dre

Not gonna lie, this one kinda came out of left field. Anyway, the year’s almost over, so it’s time to look back on all the people who earned way more money than you could ever hope to see, and it turns out, Dr. Dre is number one with a bullet. See what I mean? Left field. Via HuffPo

Another year, another crop of musicians making bank. Forbes has released its list of highest-paid musicians, led this year not by a popstar or rock band, but a doctor. Despite sounding angry in every song, rapper and beatmaker Dr. Dre earned a cool $110 million between May 2011 and May 2012. Most of that had nothing to do with the production of music, though: Dre earned the vast majority of that from his über-trendy headphone line, Beats by Dre.

Others leading the pack: Roger Waters (a founding member of Pink Floyd) with $88 million, Elton John with $80 million, U2 with $78 million and Take That with $69 million. That’s a top five with one American and no one that’s currently in the top ten of the Billboard singles chart.

Seriously. Take That. I don’t even think Robbie Williams even remembers Take That, and they still managed to rake in enough money to feed an entire continent in the space of a year. Go figs.

Dr. Dre

About JEREMY FEIST 4970 Articles
Jeremy Feist is an (ahem) entertainer from Toronto, Canada. He writes, acts, and performs on stage, and has been a writer for Popbytes for almost three years now. He lives in Toronto with his boyfriend, his incredibly dumb but cute puppy, and his immortal cat.