10 Highest-Paid Women In Music 2014

Despite fears that the digital age would derail the music industry in biblical fashion, fans haven't ever suffered from the supposedly inevitable drop in quality of music with the death of the CD. Those fears - suggested by retailers mostly - ignored the fact that star power remains the single biggest selling point to fans, even beyond quality of music in some cases. If an artist can count on millions of Twitter followers and sold out tour dates, who cares that they can't make the bigger profit margins on CDs? It certainly doesn't seem to have hurt the top ten biggest earning female artists of 2014, that much is certain. Whether touring perpetually, or taking up near permanent residence in the charts, these women are the benchmark for pop music and arguably the most important ten names in the industry right now. Some of the top earners are far from surprising: even when they're not releasing albums, stars like Lady Gaga will inevitably still remain as beloved to their fans - and as lucrative to their management - and the kind of figures that are thrown about for stars who can't even command chart performance is astonishing. Especially when you consider how much music is now streamed from the likes of Spotify to minute value to the singers themselves. These are the top 10 highest-earning women in music in 2014, according to Forbes' calculations of touring figures, record sales, publishing, merchandise sales, endorsements and other ventures...

Rating: $115 million

If Taylor Swift was the biggest break-through of the year, Queen B was the unrivalled winner of 2014. Thanks to a huge tour of 100 gigs - all of which were big sellers (to the tune of $2.4 million gross each) - and the big selling performance of newest album Beyonce, she put everyone else on the chart to shame, and her popularity doesn't show any signs of abating any time soon.