See the entire ten years of influence page here.

The title sounded like wishful thinking when Stefani Germanotta’s album arrived in August 2008 to a shrug from radio programmers and record-buyers. By the spring of 2009, though, Germanotta, aka Lady Gaga, was famous indeed. Gaga’s debut was a game-charger, making dark, booming dance-pop—buoyed by the almighty four-on-the-floor thump of Eurodisco—the dominant sound of the global charts. And it introduced the world to an outrageously plus-sized form of pop divadom—to a provocateur and fashion plate who treated the whole world as her red carpet. Those paparazzi she sang about weren’t just metaphorical, after all.

Source: Rolling Stone

According to WWD, Lady Gaga’s VOGUE issue, which features her photo shoot by Mert and Marcus, officially topped 2012 sales. At first it seemed like Taylor Swift got to sell more copies, but today the exact amount of copies sold was published.

For Vogue, Taylor Swift sold 329,371 copies, digital sales included, which was a little above the six-month average that ended in June 2012, but no match for Lady Gaga, the magazine’s top seller last year, with about 602,000 copies. Or for that matter, Adele, the second-best seller with 410,343. All numbers come from the publisher’s statements to the Alliance for Audited Media.

In 2006, 20-year-old NYU dropout Stefani Angelina Germanotta changed her name to Lady Gaga and began her plot to take over the world. It only took about three years. In that time, she brought her Madonna-inspired dance songs from downtown Manhattan’s cramped Bitter End to a multiple-night stand at Madison Square Garden. It was easy to dismiss her first big single, “Just Dance,” as a pop trifle – but the hits kept coming at a dizzying pace (“Poker Face,” “Paparazzi,” “Bad Romance,” “Edge of Glory”), each one more impressive than the last. Gaga also understands the 24/7 media culture better than any of her peers: she treats the whole world as a stage, posing in outrageously freaky costumes everywhere she goes, from the airport to the Grammys. By preaching the gospel of tolerance and self-respect to her army of “Little Monsters,” she’s split the difference between Oprah Winfrey and Madonna. It’s a highly potent formula that’s turned her into arguably the biggest star of the new millennium, with a staggering 34,500,000 Twitter followers. Her only challenge now is finding new ways to wow her audience.

Source: Billboard