The last time an act made a move from "new" to "top" faster was in 2006, when Chris Brown snared both titles concurrently. Before that, the last woman to graduate nearly as fast was Whitney Houston, who was our top new artist of 1985 and then became the top artist the following year.
Billboard's year-end music recaps are based on chart performance during the chart year that began with last year's Dec. 5 issue and ended with the Nov. 27, 2010, issue. The year-end Top Artists list ranks the best-performing acts of the year derived from activity on two charts: the Billboard 200 albums tally and the Billboard Hot 100 singles list.
Since we created the top overall artist category with our year-end recaps in 1981, only seven women have taken home the trophy, including Gaga. Taylor Swift nabbed it in 2009, preceded by LeAnn Rimes (1997), Alanis Morissette (1996), Mariah Carey (1991), Whitney Houston (1986) and Madonna (1985).