A hectic schedule of touring, paid appearances and endorsement deals has resulted in a major pay day for one of the world’s most demanded Pop stars. Indeed, the pervasive Lady Gaga has been crowned as the highest paid woman in music with estimated earnings exceeding $90 million.

Forbes has presented the annual list of the music industry’s top-earning female artists and Lady Gaga has far outgrossed competition. In fact, her $90 million total represented double the amount garnered by Taylor Swift, who made $45 million at as the calculated period’s second most successful moneymaker.

Other acts who made an impact on the list were Katy Perry, who took home $44 million at #3, and Beyonce, who was ironically ranked at #4 with $35 million. The latter released her ’4′ album in June 2011.

Elsewhere, Rihanna placed at #5 with $29 million while Adele held the #9 spot with $18 million. However, Adele has already been earmarked for a slot on next year’s tally as these figures were only developed from earnings gathered in the May 2010 to May 2011 period and did not include all of the royalties from her ’21′ album, which sold over 5 million copies in the US as of this week.

See the top 10 highest-earning female musicians of 2011 below:

1. Lady Gaga – $90 million

2. Taylor Swift – $45 million

3. Katy Perry – $44 million

4. Beyonce – $35 million

5. Rihanna – $29 million

6. Pink – $22 million

7. Carrie Underwood – $20 million

8. Celine Dion – $19 million

9. Adele  - $18 million

10. Alicia Keys/Britney Spears – $10 million

Thoughts?