Looking for a decent bet on a tasty new pop starlet for 2009? Then look no further than Lady GaGa. You’ll be in good company: the BBC, HMV, MTV, and a host of national newspapers, magazines and websites have all listed the New York girl in their tips for 2009.

And it’s not just the critics that GaGa is impressing. This week her debut single Just Dance simultaneously climbed to number 1 in both the UK singles chart and the Billboard Hot 100 in the US.

So, you’ve heard the name and you’ve heard Just Dance, but who exactly is Lady GaGa? Take the name and roll it around on your tongue a little while: Lady. GaGa. The ‘Lady’ is straightforward and the ‘GaGa’ pretty obvious (from Queen’s Radio GaGa if you’re really struggling), but the rest is far from simple.

Born in the Upper West Side, she learnt piano aged four, wrote her first song at 13, won early admission to the esteemed Tisch School of the Arts at 17; was snapped up as a songwriter by Interscope before her twentieth birthday and writes tunes so irresistible that Pussycat Dolls and Britney Spears have each donned haute couture creations from the Haus of GaGa.

She’s a performance artist who spent her teenage years at any New York open mic night that would have her, and her early 20s performing in the city’s Lower East Side clubs.

And now, at 22, she’s a bona fide, Grammy-nominated pop star. And how many of those do you know that fuse the chameleonic visual identity of David Bowie with a punk attitude and a sprinkling of pop magic dust?

Lady GaGa’s burgeoning UK success is no surprise, because in pop star terms this lady is as close to a dead cert as you can get.

Lady GaGa’s debut single, Just Dance, is out now

The debut album, The Fame, is released today

Lady GaGa is on tour with Pussycat Dolls in January-February 2009