Earlier in December, Billboard reported on rock’s ongoing decline to an all-time low in 2025, as its long-held dominance is challenged by an increasingly young slate of stadium headliners. But as we approach 2026, the genre is fighting back, returning to the top of the monthly Boxscore report.
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According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, Paul McCartney grossed $51.7 million and sold 150,000 tickets across 11 shows in November, earning the highest grossing tour of the month. It’s his second time at No. 1, after leading in May 2022.
Even though McCartney’s last triumph was three and a half years ago, it’s all contributing to the same tour. He launched the Got Back Tour in April of 2022, and has continued with legs in the fall of 2023, 2024 and now 2025. Altogether, the tour has earned $410.7 million and sold 2.4 million tickets.
Both of McCartney’s monthly victories were from shows in the United States, but Got Back has been a global affair. In between the tour’s book-ending domestic legs, he went to Australia ($37.3 million) and Brazil ($36.3 million) in 2023, Latin America ($59.1 million) and Europe ($23.8 million) in 2024, and repeated in Mexico in both of those years ($37.9 million).
Since returning to the states in September, McCartney has added $114.7 million and 400,000 tickets to the tour’s lofty totals. His November routing included two double-headers, grossing $9.1 million in Atlanta on Nov. 2-3 and $12.3 million in Chicago on Nov. 24-25.
Now beyond the $400 million and 2 million ticket thresholds, Got Back is the highest grossing and bestselling tour of McCartney’s career. He has always been a reliable sell-out act, but has typically broken out his tours into one- or two-year endeavors. The ongoing post-COVID set is seemingly indefatigable, with stronger results in 2025 than its initial run in 2022.
The rock revival continues, with Metallica at No. 2 on Top Tours, grossing $41.5 million from 334,000 tickets sold. The band’s November included five shows in Australia and one in New Zealand. Sydney proved the standout, bringing in $9.1 million and 71,800 tickets at Accor Stadium on Nov. 15.
This is part of the ongoing M72 World Tour, which launched in April 2023, and has earned $475.8 million from 4.1 million tickets so far, including one additional date in Bahrain on Dec. 3. Like for McCartney, this is Metallica’s highest grossing and bestselling tour in the Boxscore archives, surpassing $324.9 million and 3.2 million tickets on the WorldWired Tour (2016-19).
Recent reports have sent total career figures for both McCartney and Metallica above $1.3 billion. They are two of just 20 acts in Boxscore history who have reported grosses of more than $1 billion.
Pop acts — specifically women in pop — fill much of the top 10, including Dua Lipa and Lady Gaga at Nos. 3-4, respectively. The former earned $37.1 million in the penultimate month of the Radical Optimism Tour. She ventured to South America, hitting stadiums in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru. The latter grossed $27.3 million on the final European arena shows of The Mayhem Ball.
Both Lipa and Gaga have been mainstays on the monthly charts throughout 2025, so much so that they finished at No. 2 (Gaga) and No. 3 (Lipa) on the year-end Top Pop Tours ranking. Each trek has surpassed $200 million, including reported shows in December. Stay tuned for next month’s recap.
Sabrina Carpenter follows at No. 6 with $24.8 million as she completed the Short n’ Sweet Tour. She ended the trek with six nights at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif., after playing double-headers in Pittsburgh, Nashville and Toronto, plus five nights at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The entire run finished with $126.6 million and 974,000 tickets, which marked quite an increase from her previous tour, the Emails I Can’t Send Tour (2022-23), which grossed $5.6 million from 117,000 tickets.
Sandwiched between Gaga and Carpenter at No. 5 is one of the most legendary names in film music. Hans Zimmer toured with a symphony orchestra, bringing in $25.1 million from 180,000 tickets sold in November. His fall tour through Europe reached its peaks in London, Vienna and Zurich, all of which hosted two nights.
Zimmer isn’t the only instrumental act on November’s Top Tours. He’s joined by holiday perennial Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Dutch violinist Andre Rieu. Amid tours by Shakira, Travis Scott and the Eagles, these acts grossed almost $60 million combined in November, carving out a consistently robust space in the touring industry for orchestral and symphonic music.
Jonas Brothers, Travis Scott, Shakira and Linkin Park fill out the rest of the top 10. They represent the international spread of the Boxscore charts, selling out shows in the United States, South America and Asia, on tours that have likewise conquered arenas and stadiums in Europe and Australia.
