Taylor Swift 'biggest money maker of 2011'

Washington, Mar 10(ANI): Taylor Swift was named the biggest money maker in Billboard's annual list for performers in music, with amounts coming from US earnings in 2011.

The news might come as a surprise for some as based on physical sales alone, 2011 was the year of Adele after her album '21' soared to some 6.7 million sales in the States as part of 18 million worldwide; however the British singer's problems with her throat have been well documented and caused her to cancel a large section of her live schedule which also adds to the overall figures on the chart and as such she came in at a still respectable 10th place with 13,081,909 dollars, Contactmusic reported.

Swift, didn't release an album last year, but her success from 2010 LP 'Speak Now' continued and contributed to some 1.8 million album sales of her back catalogue in the States atop 7.8 million single track sales.

She supplemented this with a huge worldwide tour that grossed a whopping 88.5 million dollars in the US alone, pocketing some 29.8 million dollars net of that.

Perhaps the key source of income for Swift however is the fact she takes all of her own song writing loyalties from the album 'Speak Now' and thus took a huge amount from that.

Another names to appear in the top included U2 in second place and Kenny Chesney in third, ageing stars Celine Dion and Bon Jovi also featuring highly. (ANI)