The biggest hit single, financially, for 2019, was “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X. According to buzzangle.com, “Old Town Road” earned $8.8 million. It was easily number 1.
Post Malone had positions 2 and 3. Billie Eilish had number 4. Ariana Grande was number 5.
Number 50 was a song I’ve never heard of called “Sweet but Psycho” by Ava Max, with $2.2 million.
Taylor Swift did not make the top 50 of top earning songs. If she made a lot of money in 2019, it came from actual sales and downloads, not streaming.
Just to give you an idea of how streaming works: “Old Town Road” had 977,322,000 streams– nearly a BILLION. After all the hype, that BILLION yielded $7.4 million.
The “truth hurts.” Lizzo’s song of that name had almost 500 million streams. The actual yield? $3.7 million.
Even those millions sound like a lot of money. But the artist is splitting that with the record company, paying the writers and producers, and numerous other expenses attributed to that single. Then, of course, there’s the IRS.
