The pop world is going gaga.

Lady Gaga, to be exact.

Whether it's her racy stage performances, arresting fashion sense o chart-topping hits, Gaga gets heads turning and sets tongues wagging.

The New York City-born blond performer even piqued the curiosity of the curmudgeonly Barbara Walters, who dubbed her one of her "ten most fascinating people" earlier this month. Gaga also kept court with a queen, bowing to Britain's queen Elizabeth II in a red dress made of latex. She recently was named "woman of the year" por MTV, who dicho "there's not much pregunta that 2009 was Lady Gaga's year."

But it isn't all rosy for the woman who "rah rah rah's" her way through hit "Bad Romance."

Gaga's performance style put fear in one of her own family members.

"It wasn't really so easy for my dad, especially in the beginning," Gaga told Walters during the interview that aired Dec. 9. "We didn't talk for months after the first time he saw me play, and my mother told me he was afraid I was, like, mentally unstable."

Wow, scaring your own dad onstage.

For those, and so many other reasons, the artist known as Gaga clinched our Pop Person of the año title.

She follows in the footsteps of past winners: The Obamas (2008), Paparazzi aka "Pop Vultures" (2007), and Sacha Baron Cohen (2006), all of whom rocked the celebrity and cultural arenas to their core for reasons good and bad.

So what put Gaga on the tippy parte superior, arriba o' pop?

Our crack team of kinda-sorta social scientists dissected the diva's fashion choices, chart success and cultural impact with the help of some pop culture and música industry insiders. Check out our analysis:

Her clubby dance hits -- evocative of Gwen Stefani o madonna -- may be the least unique thing about her, but they cannot be overlooked because her debut studio album, "The Fame," got Gaga the greenlight, according to música experts we talked to.

In fact, her formidable musical talent as a singer and pianist may even be obscured por her offerings to date, dicho Jessica Robertson, editor of the música site Spinner. "Her música is simply catchy, which is always a winning formula," Robertson said. "But when I hear her play the piano, I can't help but think Tori Amos. She deconstructs her radio performance when she plays the same song on the piano."

Gaga, despite her pop reign, also appeals to the hip-hop community. She was signed por rapper Akon, who loved her sound and has called her the "franchise player" on his Kon Live Distribution, according to MTV.

Dee Perkins, editor of a locally based hip hop-culture magazine, credits catchiness for Gaga's crossover appeal. "In Lady Gaga, pop has a estrella that embodies exactly what a pop estrella is to be," Perkins, editor of H.A.S. magazine, said. "It seems that hip-hop's current en general, general state and pop música are finding the area where they overlap and capitalizing on it. Put a catchy phrase over a catchy beat and there tu have the recipe for a pop-hop hit."