Forbes.com presents the twenty highest grossing female musicians of 2007

Forbes.com has actually bothered to look at the earnings of female singers for the first time. Taking into account their estimated earnings from June 2006 to June 2007, they've compiled the following list of the twenty highest grossing female musicians. By the way, I've left in their own blurb, I was going to delete their commentary but then I realised that if I did, I'd have to actually make an effort and write something myself. Yeah, like that's gonna happen:

1. Madonna
$72 million
The ever-morphing singer still outsells artists half her age. She tops the Cash Queens list thanks largely to her record-breaking Confessions tour, plus income from album sales, an apparel line with retailer H&M and a deal with NBC to air concert footage

2. Barbra Streisand
$60 million
The 65-year-old legend, with 145 million albums sold worldwide to her credit, drew legions of die-hard fans to her short (and rare) concert series that wrapped in Europe last summer. Some tickets sold for upward of $1,000 apiece.


3. Celine Dion
$45 million
The Canadian diva's landmark Las Vegas concert drew some 3 million fans and grossed upward of $450 million during its five-year run, which ended in December.

4. Shakira
$38 million
The Colombian chanteuse shook her trademark hips from Mexico to India on a tireless tour that saw her perform 111 concerts before it was over.

5. Beyoncé
$27 million
The former Destiny's Child front woman is an endorsement darling, boasting deals with blue-chip brands like American Express, L'Oreal and Samsung.

6. Gwen Stefani
$26 million
Her last album, The Sweet Escape, peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard charts, her best performance as a solo artist. The 38-year-old platinum blonde also has an endorsement deal with HP, her own fashion label and a recently launched fragrance.

7. Christina Aguilera
$20 million
Critics adored the retro stylings of Back to Basics, her third studio album, which also proved popular with fans. Aguilera also inked deals with Pepsi and Orange, a European cellphone operator. In January, the 27-year-old welcomed her first child, Max.

8. Faith Hill
$19 million
Country's beauty-queen crooner joined husband Tim McGraw on the road for the Soul2Soul II tour, one of the year's fastest-selling, top-grossing American concert series, beating out even the U.S. leg of Madonna's Confessions tour. Hill also belts out NBC's Sunday Night Football theme song.

9. Dixie Chicks
$18 million
Despite vehement criticism from country fans of their anti-war, anti-Bush politics, the Dixie Chicks proved their resilience with their seventh studio album, the Grammy-winning Taking the Long Way Home. Though it immediately topped country and pop charts, the tour to promote the album was hit-or-miss. The Chicks canceled dates in Texas and Oklahoma following refusals from several radio stations to advertise the event.

10. Mariah Carey
$13 million
The 37-year-old pop and R&B diva makes good money off of her extensive catalog. (Her 10 studio albums have sold over 100 million copies worldwide.) The musical director for her last tour, dubbed The Adventures of Mimi, was longtime collaborator Randy Jackson, judge of American Idol.

11. Hilary Duff
$12 million
The 20-year-old former child star of Disney's Lizzie McGuire has quickly established herself as a credible pop star thanks to Dignity, her modestly selling recent studio album. Though acting and music may be her passions, retail is her biggest moneymaking asset. Stuff by Hilary Duff, merchandise targeting her tween fans, is available at Kohl's and JCPenney.

12. Avril Lavigne
$12 million
Marriage hasn't slowed this 23-year-old rocker down. Her third studio album, The Best Damn Thing, topped the pop charts last year and spawned an international mega-hit from its first single "Girlfriend." The video for that song is the second most-watched clip on YouTube, with over 69 million views. Lavigne recorded the chorus to the song in seven other languages, including Mandarin and German.

13. Martina McBride
$12 million
The 41-year-old country crooner's ninth studio album, Waking Up Laughing, was an unlikely crossover hit last year, earning top 10 spots on the country, adult contemporary and Hot 100 charts. (She's still on the road promoting the album on tour.) She and her husband own and operate Nashville's Blackbird Studio, where A-list music acts like John Bon Jovi and Keith Urban have recorded.


14. Britney Spears
$8 million
The former pop-superstar-turned-tabloid-staple eeks out a sizable income from her catalog of hits--the 26-year-old has sold over 80 million records worldwide over the course of her career--and royalties from sales of her fragrance lines. Critics be damned, her latest album, Blackout, has been a modest hit.

15. Carrie Underwood
$7 million
American Idol's fourth-season champ saw her debut album, Some Hearts, sell 8 million copies worldwide and spawn a mega-hit of its third single, "Before He Cheats." (Over 2 million downloads and counting.) Her sophomore effort, Carnival Ride, has sold over 2 million copies. Word is she'll hit the road this year with Keith Urban to promote their respective albums.

16. Nelly Furtado
$7 million
The one-time folk-indie-songstress-turned-pop-star partnered with uber-producer Timbaland for her third album, Loose, said to have sold more than 7 million copies worldwide. The album launched eight hit singles, including "Promiscuous." Furtado, 29, also appeared in Timbaland's "Give It To Me" single with Justin Timberlake

17. Fergie
$6 million
The Black Eyed Peas singer scored big with her debut solo album The Duchess, which landed five hit singles, including "Glamorous" and "Big Girls Don't Cry." Born Stacy Ann Ferguson, the 32-year-old also bagged endorsements with Kipling bags and Candie's shoes.

18. Jennifer Lopez
$6 million
Despite weak album sales of her first Spanish-language album Como Ama una Mujer and limited touring, J.Lo still rakes it in, mostly from her catalog, clothing sales and incredibly successful fragrances. (There are six fragrances so far.) Lopez also collected a paycheck for her credit in El Cantante, the biopic of salsa star Hector Lavoe co-starring hubby Marc Anthony. Lopez, 38, who also runs her own production company, is reportedly expecting twins.

19. Sheryl Crow
$6 million
The nine-time Grammy-winning pop-rock singer enjoyed income from her catalog and a smallish 2006 tour to promote her last album, Wildflowers. During that period, Crow overcame a breast cancer diagnosis and endured a very public breakup with Lance Armstrong. Last year she adopted a son, Wyatt Steven. In February, Crow, 45, will release Detours, her sixth studio album

20. Norah Jones
$5.5 million
The 28-year-old mellow rocker released her third album, Not Too Late, earlier this year and has reportedly sold 3 million copies worldwide to date. She also enjoyed income from a worldwide tour to promote the album. This year she'll make her big screen acting debut opposite Jude Law in My Blueberry Nights.

You can't begrudge Madonna being top of the list as you had to admit that our Madge does work damn hard for her money. Oh, and look at Ms Britney making the list. Her cut from selling paparazzi photographs of herself must be more lucrative than we thought!

Some classic barbs from Mr Blackwell

It was a quiet day at work so to relieve my boredom I went a-browsing on this here interweb doo-dah to dig out some more bon mots from the delightfully caustic Mr Blackwell. Even if you don't agree with his choices of worst dressed ladies, you have to admit that he's got a funny turn of phrase. The bitter old queen has been dishing it out since 1960 and here are some of the bitchy remarks that stood out:

1963 Jayne Meadows - "Looks like all the stores in town had a sale - and she bought it all; what's worse, she wore it."

1964 Jayne Meadows -"May I have an aspirin?"

1964 Debbie Reynolds - "A caricature of Zsa Zsa Gabor who is a caricature of...well, I really don't know. Plug her in and there's your Christmas tree."

1965 Elizabeth Taylor - "In tight sweaters and skirts she looks like a chain of link sausages."

1965 Barbra Streisand - "Ringo Starr in drag."

1966 Ann-Margret - "Marlon Brando in a g-string."

1966 Elizabeth Taylor - "A boutique toothpaste tube, squeezed from the middle."

1966 Carol Channing - "Finger paints, chicken feathers, and glue thrown into an electric fan."

1967 Elizabeth Taylor - "Looks like two small boys fighting under a mink blanket."

1969 Doris Day - "Doing your own thing in blushing pink...but for thirty years?"

1990 Barbra Streisand- "What can I say? Yentl 's gone mental!"

1998 Kate Winslet - "From gaudy gowns to creepy combat boots, Kate's a fashion panic - in fact, her whole wardrobe should have gone down with the Titanic."

2003 Melanie Griffith - "Melanie defines "fatal fashion folly", a botox'd cockatoo in a painting by Dali!"

2003 Celine Dion - "Half sequined scarecrow, half gaudy acrobat. Is it Abe Lincoln in drag? I'll leave it at that!"

2005 Jessica Simpson - "It's time to sack the stylist and divorce the 'designer,' she resembles a cut-rate Rapunzel slingin' hash in a Vegas diner!"

2005 Mary-Kate Olsen "In bag lady rags that look depressingly decayed – forget the 'accessories' and buy some Raid."

I also love his catty cameo in the Streetcar Named Marge episode of The Simpsons: "Memo to Goldie Hawn: Cheerleading tryouts were 30 years ago. Let’s grow up, shall we?" Aw, I love Goldie. That's just mean.

Meow, saucer of milk for Mr Blackwell!

The X Factor - Movie theme week with Celine Dion!

I know, it's only the second week of X Factor but it already feels like it's been on for ever! Anyway, we had Celine Dion on this week doing a masterclass with the acts. Oh, I love super crazy Celine and she didn't disappoint. My favourite bit was where she said that although she only got to spend a couple of minutes with each act, she felt as if she got to know them all very well and even fell in love with a few of them. Wow, she's so intense, she creeps me out! All four judges were back of course - you didn't really expect Mrs Osbourne to walk off the show did you? It was just all good publicity.


Ok, first up was fakey girl group Hope who sang Lady Marmalade which was used in "Moulin Rouge". Celine advised them during her "masterclass" to add lots of whooos! and waaaaaahs! through the song. She's funny. Now, the girls (and Simon) have obviously decided that Sex Sells so they were trussed up in just their bustiers and satin knickers and gyrated their way through the song. It was all a bit too much for me, they may as well just pull out their vaginas and put tassles on their titties. Simon enjoyed it though and did you notice how sweaty he was at the end? He was dripping!

Little moaning, uncomfortable, sad Leon Jackson was next and, after last week's disaster, he toned things down with singing Home, a Michael Bublé song from the film "The Wedding Date" which he already sang at boot camp a few weeks ago. He was better than last week and Leon has a good voice, but he always looks so nervous. Simon made a crack about how Leon looked like one of the young boys that Louis lures into his dressing room! That Simon cracks me up. And what about Louis, telling Leon that he has no charisma. As if Louis can talk about charisma! Then he had the nerve to say that his group Westlife have done a much better version on their new album out on Monday. The cheeky old queen!

Beverley Trotman was up next (without the diva wig!) and sang Whitney Houston’s I Have Nothing from "The Bodyguard". I like Beverley and she sang well, but she's gotta watch her facial expressions. On the high notes, she sort of scrunches her face up like she's trying to pop out a dry pooh and it's so not pleasant to watch. I like her though and hope she carries on.

Now, I like Sharon Osbourne, I'm a huge fan, but I have no idea what she thinks she's doing this year with the girls. Last week, she deserved to have two acts in the bottom two with her rotten song choices so you think she would've had a rethink and chosen better songs for this week. Well, that's what I would've thought, but Sharon went and let Alicia Bennett sing Say A Little Prayer (used in "My Best Friend's Wedding") wearing a huge pink bow in her hair. Oh, what has happened to Alicia? She was so good in the auditions but this was dull and uninspired.

Next up, the uncomfortably close brother and sister group Same Difference sang Breaking Free from "High School Musical". I don't know anything about that film, but I do know that my ten year old niece loves it and I had to get her the DVD for last Christmas. What can you say about these two? Just lots of cheesy grins and air grabs. I only wish they'd sing all their songs looking into each others eyes and maybe kiss at the end. You know, on the lips or something. Oh, I'm sick!

Daniel DeBourg had to sing Build Me Up, Buttercup from "There's Something About Mary" and it was just awful. I liked Daniel from the beginning and he had such good songs throughout boot camp, but this was a mess. He kept a-whooping and a-spinning to try and inject some energy, but this was just embarrassing to watch. Daniel looked as bored with the song as we were. He'd be better singing something slower with a bit of R'nB, not this shite. It's fun when you're drunk at a wedding, but it's not suitable for X Factor. I think Louis has buggered it up again. Let's face it, he's fun when laughing at people during the auditions, but he's really just an old fart.



Oh, sweet Lord Jesus, Mary Mother of God, it was The Rhydian up next. As if last week wasn't creepy enough, Dannii let him sing The Phantom of the Opera with all the campness and pyrotechnics we all now expect from him. After he sang for Celine, she just looked at him opened mouthed and, for a second, I hoped that she was going to say: "what the fuck was that?" but oh no, she loved it. I only loved it at the end when Mrs Osbourne said that she had revised her opinion of him and now liked him because he was a bigger drama queen than her! Rhydian didn't contradict her... anyone else smell gay? I have no idea why the judges like him so much, Simon even called him "world class"!

Emily Nakanda came on and sang Britney Spear’s I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman from "Crossroads". Dear oh dear oh dear. WTF is Sharon doing to these young girls? First of all, that bloody purple outfit with the beret! Yeah, that's exactly how a fourteen year old wants to dress, FFS! Oh, she was awful and pitchy throughout (by the way, wouldn't you love to have Louis replaced with Randy Jackson? Oh, that would be dreamy!) and she had this fake smile on and tried to act all cheerful and bouncy. It just didn't work. Like I said last week, give her something downbeat and sad to sing, she'd nail that.

Fakey (but hot) boy band Futureproof sang If You Don’t Know Me By Now and did a good job. I still think they're good five solo singers who just happen to be standing next to each other on stage and singing instead of being a real group that interacts, but who cares when they're this cute? Speaking of cute, Andy Williams was up next but Dannii made the unfortunate choice of Staying Alive from "Saturday Night Fever" for him. Didn't she realise that this song is a bugger to sing? Poor Andy looked very awkward trying to dance his way through this ditty. They definitely saved the best for last (as the producers always do!) when Niki Evans sang Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On from "Titanic". Sure, she sang a few bum notes when it changed key, but Niki sings with such conviction and heart that it doesn't really matter. Nice rack too.

Now, because I recorded this and watched it back this morning, I'm gonna go straight to the results show. Celine came on and sang her new song because, you know, that's the real reason why she was on - a free trip to London and she gets to sing her song in front of millions of viewers - she doesn't give a hoot about any of these acts! Anyway, something must've been wrong with her headpiece because she kept reaching behind to try and fix it and she sang way off key. Sometimes it's a shame that the judges don't get a chance to bitch and moan about the guests too!


Ok, so Alisha and Daniel were in the bottom two and it wasn't really surprising. Only Andy and Emily were anywhere near as bad. So what do you think happened? Well, after last week's walkout from Mrs Osbourne, you didn't think that Simon would let another of her acts leave so soon did you? Of course not! Simon voted poor Daniel to go which allows Alisha to get voted off next week. Well, she's been in the bottom two twice now so I wouldn't be optimistic about her chances!

By the way, it's the Big Band theme next week which is probably my least favourite themed week and the guest act is Boys II Men. I wonder what they'll make of The Rhydian!

The Idol Gives Back results show or rather, the non-results show

This wasn't a typical American Idol results show. It was more of a variety show with lots of guest appearences. Ellen Degeneres kicked things off by introducing Earth Wind and Fire who I haven't seen on TV for years. By the way, is it just me or does Ellen look a little different these days? Could be a brow lift or botox, but she sure doesn't look the same around the eyes. Her eyebrows definitely rise up in the middle. Maybe just a little.

My favourite bits: Kelly Clarkson's horrible, horrible Mama Cass dress; that awful Celine Dion and Elvis Presley duet which was creepy but kinda entertaining at the same time; Blake dressed in white; Teri Hatcher tearing around during Stayin' Alive like an old drunk; the Simpsons cartoon bit, didn't Lisa just nail a drunk, incoherent Paula Abdul?


The bits I didn't like: Jack Black, you know he thinks he's funny, but I have no idea why he has that idea; Ben Stiller, who used to be cute and funny but now just acts and looks like someone's desperately uncool uncle; Ryan Seacrest continuously telling us we were going to be shocked by the results this week.

Well, the alleged shocker this week was that no one was eliminated. I dunno, didn't you think that Idol kids didn't look too surprised when Ryan told them they were all safe this week? Usually they're all shaking and quivering when it comes to seeing who gets cut so their reactions all seemed pretty subdued. The good news is that two of them will get canned next week. Phil's got to be one of 'em, surely. And unless LaKisha throws it down next week, she'll be vulnerable too. Anyway, enough of my crystal ball gazing, let's look forward to next week when it's Jon Bon Jovi mentoring the Idol Kids for Rock Week!

I already cannot wait.

"Tommy used to work on the docks
Unions been on strike
He's down on his luck...its tough, so tough.."

Drea-my

American Idol's Antonella Barba's nude photos prove to be a top search

Amazing what showing a bit of skin can do for your popularity. According to media reports, American Idol's favourite ho', New Jersey's own Antonella Barba is one of the top subjects searched for over the internet. However, searches for trampy Antonella are led by phrases that clearly imply the searcher has no idea who she is, they just want to see the dirty pictures people are talking about (“american idol nude,” “american idol topless,” “nude american idol,”) while people who actually know her name use predictable phrases to look for the photos (“antonella barba’s topless pics,” “antonella barba photos, “antonella barba pics,” “american idol naked,” “antonella barba pictures,” “antonella topless,” “nude american idol photos,” “antonella barba topless,” “topless american idol,” and “pictures of antonella barba”).

Well, you get the picture. I'm stunned that this stroppy and nervous girl is still on the show. She is clearly the worst singer on the show and didn't you just love that she chose to sing a Celine Dion song this week? Yeah, pick a difficult Celine Dion song, that's the right way to demonstrate your vocal limitations!

Anyway, there are rumours circulating that Antonella herself is behind the leaking of these photos and not her sneaky back-stabbing money grubbing friends. If true, this would be a remarkably cynical manipulation by her of the intense media interest in American Idol. I mean, I guess trying to do well in American Idol by showing what a scheming ho' you are is a tactic, but leaking old photos of her titties and sweaty vagina on the internet should not be getting Antonella Barba votes!