Lady Gaga Earned $90 Million In Year's Time, Leading Women In Music

Lady Gaga's latest music video, for "Marry the Night," juxtaposes her desperate pre-fame years with high-concept, high priced art and fashion work, and it makes for a nice metaphor for her meteoric rise. Just a singer in a bar a few years back, Gaga has reached the top of the music industry, with Forbes announcing that she led all women musicians with $90 million in earnings from May 2010-May 2011.

The singer, who so often dominates iTunes and makes myriad public appearances, toured on her worldwide Monster Ball Tour for the duration of the year period. That produced a huge chunk of her revenue, as did sales for her album "The Fame Monster," which, though it came out in November 2009, held strong to sell over five million copies worldwide (and counting). Sales of her most recent album, "Born This Way," do not count in the total, as it was released in late May, 2011.

'Born This Way,' And Other Empowering Teen Anthems Of 2011

The '80s had Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" and Madonna's "Express Yourself," and in the '90s, Nirvana became the voice of a generation with "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Every decade and year has its youth-empowering anthems which voice the spirit of its teenagers. And when it comes to kick-ass teen anthems, 2011 was a great year.

After we saw Miley Cyrus perform her moving single "The Climb" at the CNN Heroes Awards, we started wondering what other awesome teen anthems inspired us this year. In 2011 -- a year in which Occupy Wall Street, anti-bullying campaigns, and LGBT rights made headlines -- individuality and personal power was the name of the game. From Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" (the ultimate song of self-acceptance) to Glee's dynamite cover of "We Are Young" to Demi Lovato's super-inspiring single "Skyscraper," it was an unbeatable year for power-ballads.

Lady Gaga named top-earning female music star of 2011

Lady Gaga beat Taylor Swift and Katy Perry to make it to number one

Lady Gaga is the highest-earning woman in the music business, having made an estimated $90 million (£58m) over the past year, according to Forbes.

The US star was paid more than twice as much as country singer Taylor Swift, who finished second in the survey with earnings of $45 million (£29m).

Lady Gaga topped the rundown because of her multiple endorsement deals.

She also raked in an estimated $1.3 million (£841,000) in ticket sales per night from her latest world tour.

Two Door Cinema Club's Lady Gaga remix 'total surprise'

Interview by Greg Cochrane, words by Steven McIntosh
Newsbeat reporters

Two Door Cinema Club have told Newsbeat that being asked to remix a song for Lady Gaga was a "total surprise".

The band's reworking of the US singer's Electric Chapel appeared on her remix album earlier this year.

Alex Trimble from the band described the experience as an "incredible opportunity".

Two Door Cinema Club, from County Down, have had chart success in the UK with I Can Talk, What You Know and Something Good Can Work.

Trimble said: "I got a call from our manager, saying Lady Gaga's asked if you want to do a remix and you've got a week to do it in.

"For me that's not really a lot of time, especially as we were on tour, but I couldn't really turn down that chance. It's such an incredible opportunity.

"So I just worked every single day and night and just threw it together and I'm really proud of it. It's such an honour to be asked by such a massive artist."

'Writing solidly'

Two Door Cinema Club are working on their second album.

"It's coming along pretty well, we've been writing solidly since the start of October," said Trimble.

"I'd say we're probably 70% there with the writing, so hopefully by the end of January we'll be ready to hit the studio and start recording."