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Highest-Paid Country Acts 2019: Lil Nas X Debuts; Luke Bryan Tops List

By Zack O'Malley Greenburg | Forbes | November 13, 2019

The Country Music Awards are billed as Nashville’s biggest night, but this year’s event buried the genre’s most significant breakthrough of the past 12 months, offering up just one nomination for 20-year-old musician Lil Nas X, whose “Old Town Road” spent a record 19 weeks atop the singles charts.

That run helped Lil Nas X notch a different honor, debuting on the Forbes list of top-earning country acts this year with an estimated pretax income of $14 million. The Atlanta native claims the No. 18 spot thanks to the fiendishly catchy country-trap track he released through indie music service Amuse in December 2018. The song clocked 1.8 billion spins by summer despite being booted from the Billboard country charts. The snub—and a bevy of remixes—helped “Old Town Road” broaden the genre’s audience more than any track in recent memory. 

“It was on viral charts in countries where no country song has ever positioned itself,” says Amuse cofounder Diego Farias. “Everything from Southeast Asian markets to eastern-European markets. I mean, I’m talking about places that you don’t necessarily associate with cowboy hats and boots.”

Lil Nas X isn’t the only high-earner to come up short at the awards ceremony: Luke Bryan claims the top spot on our list for the second consecutive year with $42.5 million but didn’t receive a single nomination. That’s mostly because the Georgia native, who favors baseball caps over cowboy hats, hasn’t put out a new studio album since 2017. Instead, he spent his time grossing more than $1 million per tour stop and serving as a judge on American Idol.

The genre-bending Zac Brown Band ranks second, pulling in $38.5 million on the strength of 50 live performances and a new record, The Owl, which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 album charts. Other crossover acts on the list include Canadian songstress Shania Twain (No. 7 with $29 million) and hip-hop-tinged duo Florida Georgia Line (No. 8 with $26 million).

“Country’s more of a lifestyle,” the group’s cofounder Brian Kelley told Forbes in 2015. “The music’s always going to evolve.”

Plenty of the CMAs’ stars did make our list, including performers Eric Church (No. 6, $30 million) and Miranda Lambert (No. 20, $13 million), as well two of the hosts—Dolly Parton (No. 15, $17 million) and Carrie Underwood (No. 14, $16 million). A third host, Reba McEntire, narrowly missed the cut.

Overall, the top ten acts in country earned $311.5 million, up 2% from last year’s $304.5 million. Our list of the genre’s top earners measures estimated pretax earnings from June 1, 2018, through June 1, 2019. Fees for agents, managers and lawyers are not deducted. Figures are generated with the help of numbers from Nielsen Music, PollstarPro and interviews with industry insiders.

Although our rankings typically reflect country’s woeful lack of diversity at the top, this year’s list offers at least a glimmer of hope that things are changing. There are six women in the top 20—the least lopsided ratio in the seven years Forbes has published the list—and Lil Nas X is both the first openly gay act and the first person of color to make it.

Though he declined to comment for this story through a representative, Lil Nas X is clearly taking his role as a trailblazer seriously, regardless of how much CMA hardware he takes home. As he told BBC earlier this year: “I feel like [I’m] opening doors for more people.”

Country's Top Earners 2019

20. Miranda Lambert, $13 million (tie)

20. Lady Antebellum, $13 million (tie)

19. Rascal Flatts, $13.5 million

18. Lil Nas X, $14 million

17. Faith Hill, $15 million

16. Carrie Underwood, $16 million

15. Dolly Parton, $17 million

14. George Strait, $17.5 million

13. Tim McGraw, $18 million

12. Dierks Bentley, $20 million

11. Toby Keith, $21 million

10. Jason Aldean, $23.5 million

9. Garth Brooks, $24 million

8. Florida Georgia Line, $26 million

7. Shania Twain, $29 million

6. Eric Church, $30 million

5. Kenny Chesney, $31 million

4. Blake Shelton, $32 million

3. Keith Urban, $35 million

2. Zac Brown Band, $38.5 million

1. Luke Bryan, $42.5 million

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2019/11/13/highest-paid-country-acts-2019-lil-nas-x-debuts-luke-bryan-tops-list/#70e9277539b7