We knew Guns N Roses and Metallica made a lot of money this year, but how does it rank to some of the other power players? We've already looked at the insane individual grosses of Guns N Roses shows as well as the blockbuster numbers Metallica did for their tours.
The tens and hundreds of millions of dollars grossed here are numbers any other metal band can only dream of. Guns N Roses and Metallica are in another universe compared to the rest of the metal and hard rock world. In fact, they are in the very top echelon of the entire music business. Forbes crunched the numbers and listed the two acts among the top 10 highest grossing musicians of 2017:
01. Diddy ($130 M)
02. Beyoncé ($105 M)
03. Drake ($94 M)
04. The Weeknd ($92 M)
05. Coldplay ($88 M)
06. Guns N Roses ($84 M)
07. Justin Bieber ($83.5 M)
08. Bruce Springsteen ($75 M)
09. Adele ($69 M)
10. Metallica ($66.5 M)
Forbes noted the list was made by collecting data from Nielsen SoundScan, Pollstar, the RIAA and interviews with industry insiders, and counts all pre-taxed gross income from June 1, 2016 through June 1, 2017, and did not take into consideration fees paid to agents, managers and lawyers.
Although, when we looked at Guns N Roses' numbers, they were far past $84 million in the second half of 2017, and Metallica's touring grosses surpassed $66.5 million as well, so this isn't even the full story.
Basically, these two entities are filthy fuckin' rich!
