You may or may not of noticed that ‘Celebrity Net Worth‘ recently put together and published a list of the world’s 30 richest DJs and their estimated net worths, and while we were aware that there is big money to be made, some of the estimated figures are staggering, especially when you consider what some of the artists on the list have actually contributed, for example Steve Aoki $20m vs Chemical Brothers $15m.
Breaking the list down its clear that there are three overiding routes into the DJ Golden League. You either need to be a pioneering DJ from the Mid-90’s, make commercially focused beats, or have a hype-able gimmick. This is not to say that you cant write critically acclaimed electronic albums see messers Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, Fatboy Slim, Moby, however its worth noting that all these artists have been with us for sometime and the more recent DJ/Musician entrants, in our opinion, have bodies of work that are less likely to be revered in years to come. However while all this makes interesting reading its not really that important.
30 Afrojack ($2 million) Dutch
29 Markus Schulz ($2 million) German
28 Darude ($2.5 million) Finland
27 Kaskade ($3 million) US
26 Martin Solveig ($3 million) French
25 Eric Prydz ($4 million) Swedish
24 Swedish House Mafia ($4 million each) Swedish
23 Gareth Emery ($5 million) English
22 Avicii ($6 million) Swedish
21 Skrillex ($8 million) US
20 Andre Tanneberger ($8 million) German
19 Calvin Harris ($10 million) British
18 Deadmau5 ($12 million) British
17 Benny Benassi ($14 million) Italian
16 Carl Cox ($15 million) British
15 The Chemical Brothers ($15 million) British
14 Ferry Corsten ($18 million) Dutch
13 Steve Aoki ($20 million) US
12 Fatboy Slim ($22 million) British
11 David Guetta ($25 million) French
10 Moby ($28 million) US
09 Daft Punk ($30 million each) French
08 Pete Tong ($30 million) British
07 Judge Jules ($40 million) British
06 Sasha (($40 million) British
05 Armin Van Buuren ($40 million) Dutch
04 John Digweed ($45 million) British
03 Paul Van Dyk ($50 million) German
02 Paul Oakenfold ($55 million) British
01 Tiesto ($65 million) Dutch
Thanks to Stereogum for alerting us to this one