Madonna Named As World's Richest Recording Artist

Madonna tops a new list of the world's wealthiest recording artists, besting fellow 1 percenters Paul McCartney and Dr. Dre. According to Wealth-X's net worth valuation of the pop queen, Madge is worth a staggering $800 million.

That's significantly less than the one billion the New York Post valued her at in 2013, but it's far ahead of Sir Paul, whose net worth Wealth-X places at $660. For those of you who thought Macca had more scratch, keep in mind that his wife, Nancy Shevell, is worth a reported $300 million. So although the McCartney couple is worth more than Madge, the former Beatle isn't richer than her on his own.

Following McCartney comes Dr. Dre who - despite that massive Beats deal with Apple - is at No. 3 on the list with $650 million. Speaking of rap moguls, Diddy is the fourth-wealthiest recording artist in 2014 - although at this point, both Dr. Dre and Diddy are more businessmen than active recording artists.

But keep in mind that this is a list of the world's wealthiest recording artists. When you include musicians as a whole, you open the list up to composers and theater moguls like Andrew Lloyd Webber - a man worth around $1.2 billion. So clearly, Cats pays better than Beatles.

From Billboard.com