(This article is part of a series that will examine seminal albums released a decade ago and attempt to reevaluate their impact and significance through the lens of history.)

One of the most oft-used clichés associated with Madonna’s prodigious musical output has been the declaration that she is a ‘cultural chameleon’ who is capable of morphing her own sound to mimic and match the popular trends emerging around her.  This is the same sort of misguided label that was originally directed at David Bowie, a man whose desire to explore new genres and push the boundaries that had been imposed on him by critics, fans and the expectations of the industry frequently caused him to move in seemingly unpredictable directions.

I have never bought into the idea that Madonna’s ability to remain relevant through several of the seismic shifts in musical taste that occurred during her reign as a pop icon was anything other than her continued growth as an artist.  However, I do believe that as she entered the new millennium she became increasingly concerned about connecting with the youth market that she was no longer a part of chronologically.  This desire was reflected in her work from the year 2000 on, resulting in a definite alteration of her image as an artist and arguably a similar change in the quality of her music – a change that began with the album Music.

Music hit stores in September of 2000 and while it continued the definite electronic inflections of Ray of Light which had preceded it in 1998, it took those influences in a very different direction.  In the two year gap between the two albums the dance music universe that Madonna had once been a paragon of had been invaded by a revitalized house music scene.  At the forefront of this new wave of music were French producers such as Daft Punk and Cassius.  The harder-edged, less melodic sound was very funky and very danceable, and Madonna was definitely paying attention to the wave that was about to crash over North America and Europe, crested by Daft Punk’s crossover Discovery album in 2001.  At the same time, the more underground, grainy sounds of electro were starting to gain momentum in clubs around the world, and Madonna also had her ear turned in this direction when it came to drawing inspiration for her new album.

Madonna’s Music featured a number of producers, which was part and parcel of her customary studio process.  While she retained the services of William Orbit, whose influence had helped to make Ray of Light one of Madonna’s least mainstream records of the 90’s, she also enlisted the more radio-friendly talents of Mark Stent.  However, the most important contributions would come from in-house Maverick talent and Madonna protégé Mirwais Ahmadzai, a French producer who would author (among others) the title track and Don’t Tell Me.  Each of these songs, in addition to being successful singles would also help to push Madonna’s music style for the next 10 years in a completely new direction.

What did the future sound like to Madonna in the year 2000?  While the album offered several nods to her past – the ballads I Deserve It and Nobody’s Perfect, and the Austin Powers-esque Amazing (essentially a less catchy reprise of Beautiful Stranger) – it was clear that the soaring vocals and breakbeats that had dominated Ray of Light had been cast aside.  In their place the new Madonna shone through loud and clear in between the stop / start rhythms and chunky baselines of the album’s first track Music, a vocoder-laced entreaty to the DJ to ‘put a record on / I wanna dance with my baby’.  Rough around the edges without the sheen afforded to Ray of Light, the track was designed to hit dancers hard in the hips and offered compressed mid-range tones, crushed percussion and a pulsing single-note bass line.  Dynamically monotonous, Music also predicted the loudness wars that would soon sweep over the pop charts.

Two other standout tracks from the album – which were of course also singles – were less enthusiastic in their presentation of Madonna’s new musical agenda, preferring instead to gently guide loyal fans through their idol’s fresh sonic landscape.  Don’t Tell Me featured a straightforward structure with synth string highlights, but it also provided deftly processed vocals, a watered-down stuttering beat and the same droning bass found underpinning Music.  What It Feels Like For A Girl was slightly more ambitious in expanding horizons, combining a drum track composed from an electro artist’s beginner sample kit with a slightly glitchy main melody, tied together by Madonna’s ambiguously androgynous lyrics.

Overall, when taken together even with the filler ballads and pseudo-experimental tracks such as Paradise (not for me), the album presents the most mature portrait of Madonna available both to that point and beyond to present day.  While the effort made by the track Music to connect with both electro and French filter house was in no way subtle, both Don’t Tell Me and What It Feels Like For A Girl feature none of the musical stunts or self-importance that would litter her later work.  The more subtle approach taken by these songs when it came to breaking new ground in partnership with her core audience would be completely abandoned on the empty concept album that followed three years later (American Life).

What is the legacy of Music?  It could be said that this album represents the last time that Madonna took a calculated risk in the studio without resorting to the tired attention-getting devices of sampling the hooks of dance hits hailing from another era (Confessions on a Dance Floor) or awkwardly teaming up with pop stars half her age (Hard Candy) in order to generate hits.  More importantly, Madonna’s Music introduced American audiences to the French and electro influences that had been bubbling just under the surface of the mainstream (Fischerspooner, Peaches, Ladytron and Thomas Bangalter) and which would emerge more fully into the musical consciousness within the one to two year window following its release.  As for Madonna, while sales remained at the level expected of a superstar of her caliber throughout the decade, Music would mark the last time she could count herself as being genuinely positioned as the herald of any musical trend.

The automotive media had a field day this week with an internal memo that had been sent to Chevrolet employees in Detroit.  The contents of the message stressed that the word ‘Chevy’ was no longer to be used in any official communications regarding the brand, as it was causing too much confusion and diluting the Chevrolet image.

Naturally, the idea that a corporation could put the Chevy genie back in the bottle after 50 years of advertising and car culture had made the word as American as apple pie seemed ridiculous – and precisely the type of move that an out-of-touch corporate giant would blunder into.  While this particular mis-step certainly made it look like few things had changed at General Motors since the recent bankruptcy reorganization, the opposite is in fact true.  GM has come a long way in terms of redefining its image, re-staking its claim on the North American market and shoring up its financial performance over the past 10 months.

So much press was generated from the leaked internal memo that GM was forced to issue its own statement claiming that the wording had not been properly thought through, and that of course it would not discourage the public at large from continuing to use the word Chevy in the discussion of its products.  With regards to ‘wording,’ the most amusing part of the memo was the example given of Coke employing a similar singular corporate brand focus, ignoring the fact that the proper name for the manufacturer of the carbonated beverage is Coca-Cola, and that it has maintained dual brand identities for decades.

Regardless of the GM’s clarified position, internally Chevrolet will henceforth be referred to exclusively as ‘Chevrolet’– at least until the brand selects yet another advertising agency to take over its account, as GM has had little success in maintaining a long-term relationship with its Chevrolet campaign designers of late.  If the company continues to make moves like this, then perhaps it won’t need any external PR at all – as Oscar Wilde once said, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

(This article is the first in a series that will examine seminal albums released a decade ago and attempt to reevaluate their impact and significance through the lens of history.)

It was the year 2000 –  Halloween, to be precise – and the world of hip hop was at a turning point.  Eminem had dominated record sales for most of that year thanks to the 10 million copies of The Marshall Mathers LP that flew out the door at a never-before-seen pace.  At the other end of the spectrum, party maven Nelly had dropped Country Grammar, an album that would make him a household name and give him a brief pass into the world of rap stardom.

That fateful fall day, however, would see another record birthed into the world that would straddle the line between hip hop purity, exuberant crowd-moving joy and deep personal introspection.  Outkast’s Stankonia was perhaps one of the most important rap albums to be released at the dawn of the new millennium, and it would in many ways serve as a dividing line between what was suddenly old and what was about to become new.

That it has been a full decade since the tracks from Stankonia ruled both the airwaves and the video charts seems hard to believe.  This was the record that took Outkast from hip hop heroes to pop phenomenon, achieving for them even greater fame than they had been able to find with their previous crossover success, Rosa Parks.  It also served to more blatantly display the eccentricities and willingness to explore new territory that would eventually dominate Outkast’s musical production for the rest of the decade.  Stankonia might not have completely prepared us for the shock that was Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, but at least we had been warned.

It was on Stankonia that Big Boi and André 3000 took the opportunity to stretch their wings and deliver a raft of tunes that hewed to no previously established musical order.  World beat shared groove space with rock-tinged beats, funk and jazzy slow jams.  Tying it all together was rhyme delivery from each of Outkast’s pair of supremely gifted lyricists that swung back and forth between smooth and frenetic.  This was intelligent music that aimed its salvo far above the partyheads and successploitation artists that were starting to dominate the charts, rap that didn’t cater to gritty street tales but instead touched on subjects both ethereal and substantial that when taken together formed a cohesive, 360-degree Outkast worldview.

Stankonia was also an album that introduced two enormously different yet extraordinarily influential singles.  The first was B.O.B. which engaged the ear with the inviting jingle of synthesized chimes before launching a full on breakbeat assault that stole liberally from both the headlines (the Iraq war) and the lives of Dre and Big Boi.  The song’s power was undeniable, and it was so different from anything else currently spinning on hip hop radio – especially with its gospel-influenced ‘bombs over Baghdad’ chorus – that it instantly separated itself from the hip hop fray and has over time helped to make the group as accessible to newcomers as it was indispensable to hardened rap soldiers.

The second single, and the one that put Outkast over on the crossover crowd was the pop masterpiece Ms. Jackson, an intimate entreaty to the mother of André 3000’s baby momma Erykah Badu.  Marital strife, the strain of deciding custody issues and the overbearing presence of the in-laws are all boiled down to simple poetry that makes it impossible not to extend a hand in friendship to Dre’s beleaguered narrator.  The fact that every word he said was true – or at least, a version of the truth – has added poignancy to the song that reverberates through the years.

In the 10 years since this seminal rap recording was made the hip hop genre has become so twisted and disfigured as to be almost unrecognizable.  There are, however, a few clear signs as to the impact that Stankonia had on the industry as a whole and on Outkast in particular.  While it did not light up the charts initially, the success of Ms. Jackson as a single and the ensuing popularity of Outkast as a cultural phenomenon allowed the duo to gain both the confidence and the clout needed to go forward with their extremely ambitious double album only three years later.  Outkast’s use of local Atlanta talent and un-selfconscious promotion of southern rap as a viable fountainhead of nationally marketable music also help to uncap the wellspring of acts that were signed below the Mason-Dixon Line over the course of the ensuing decade.

Stankonia also serves another purpose ten years past its drop date.  It is very difficult to search out and discover a hip hop record in 2010 that manages to speak with the same immediacy, smoothness and substance as Stankonia did while avoiding the pretense, overproduction and trend-hopping that has become a hallmark of this increasingly confused and diluted genre.  With Stankonia, Outkast may have put together the last of the accessibly strange yet undeniably powerful rap efforts.  In a subculture where grandiosity has become a prepackaged dance routine with very clearly defined career steps and sound palettes, high concept efforts have increasingly begun to seem like copies of a copy of a copy.  Stankonia was the final original brick in traditional hip hop’s foundation.

There are so many different seals of approval, safety awards and marks of industry excellence floating around the automotive world that it can be difficult for the average driver to sort through the accolades and determine which ones are the most meaningful to them.  This post is the first in a series that tackles the major vehicle awards and ratings and explains them in plain language so that you can decide which ones – if any – will impact your vehicle buying decisions.

As a freelance automotive writer, you can be sure that I am often called upon to write about the safety benefits of a particular vehicle.  How a car, truck or crossover performs in a crash is a very important characteristic for new vehicle shoppers, especially those with young families or children.  One of the most respected and difficult to achieve safety ratings is given out by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).  This non-profit group has been in existence since 1959, and since 2005 it has given out a Top Safety Pick award for the vehicles it judges to be the safest on the market.

Only 27 automobiles made the cut and received Top Safety Pick recognition for 2010.  Taking a look at how strenuous the criteria are for this award makes it easy to understand why so few vehicles manage to satisfy the requirements set forth by the IIHS.  Any car, truck or SUV hoping to achieve this particular safety rating must be judged as offering ‘Good’ protection in front, rear and side impacts.  They must also offer electronic stability control as at least an optional feature.  2010 was a particularly grueling year for IIHS hopefuls as the organization introduced a new rollover crash rating wherein vehicles had to offer roof strength that is twice that mandated by federal regulations when it comes to crush testing.

What is the bottom line for safety-conscious new car shoppers?  IIHS Top Safety Pick recognition is the real deal when it comes to separating reasonably safe cars from very safe cars.  The real-world testing performed in order for a vehicle to meet IIHS standards is extremely harsh and a good indicator of how an automobile will perform in a serious crash.  Subaru led the pack this year with five vehicles out of the 27 on the list, and Volkswagen and Volvo each contributed four.  You can see a complete list of the IIHS’s 2010 Top Safety Picks list here:  http://www.iihs.org/news/rss/pr111809.html.

The Macquarium.

I have never been a huge Mac fan, but I have always been fond of fish and older computer hardware.  As a result, ever since I was a teenager scouring the early days of the World Wide Web I have wanted to build my own Macquarium.  What is a Macquarium, you ask?  Simply put, it is a Mac which has been converted into a fish tank.  I have encountered many different types of Macquariums online, ranging from iMacs to Classics, but given that I am sentimental a Classic IIe has always been my preferred high tech fish bowl of choice.

Several years ago, my significant other and I decided to make this wet Mac dream a reality.  After locating a decent Macquarium shell in the form of a Classic IIe acquired from the Concordia University Journalism department, we then procrastinated for two years and two moves before actually putting our plan into action.  Actually, it wasn’t exactly our plan – we followed the time-honored steps laid out by Andy Ihnatko in his ‘The Original Macquarium Volume Four’ instructions.   All in all, the process took about three weeks from start to finish to complete, although things probably would have taken less time had we not run into a few stumbling blocks along the way.

Getting Started

The first part was the easiest – disassembling the Mac and taking out its digital guts and screen.  Our machine hadn’t been used in years, so there were no worries about charged capacitors lurking inside its silicon innards.  We had actually cleaned out the Mac just prior to our last move in a burst of inspiration that unfortunately didn’t last past the packing and unpacking phase.

With our computer free of actual computing components, we then moved on to shaving down the many mounting points found inside the computer case.  To do this, we used a Dremel tool, which kept snapping cutting discs but still managed to make short work of the old tan plastic.  The discs were especially effective at generating enough heat to create clouds of worrisomely toxic early-90’s plastic smoke, which most likely took a few years off of both of our lives.  We also had to cut an access port off in the top of the tank, and to do this we used a combination of the Dremel and a hacksaw blade.

Glass

I mentioned above that the Macquarium assembly process didn’t go quite as smooth as we had hoped.  The reason for this?  Glass.  In order to make a tank which fits flush against the case’s front opening, preserving the illusion that the computer screen still remains, it is necessary to custom build an angled glass tank that fits inside the unit.  At first, we went to Home Depot to have our glass cut, but while they were happy to do 90 degree corners for us, they refused to do any angled cuts.

This led my partner to buy a glass cutter and attempt to do the cuts on her own.  Given that the angles are shallow, the glass cutter was unable to provide the type of precision required to create the smooth lines needed to join up with the rest of the tank.  After going through several different pieces of glass that each ended up with small, leak-inducing chunks on their edges, we finally located a neighborhood glass and mirror shop.  We then discovered that glass is really cheap – even custom cut glass – and never looked back, having them cut the angles for us.  If anyone reading this is considering following in our footsteps, I cannot stress enough how inexpensive and easy it is to have a pro cut the glass for you.  Don’t do it yourself – it’s not worth it.

Something somewhat frightening recently happened in my life: I completed my first novel.  In addition to the very satisfying freelance writing career that I have built for myself, I also enjoy creating fiction.  My novel is the most focused and carefully constructed work in this realm that I have attempted to this point, and the writing process was also a huge learning experience for me, both in terms of how I write and how I think.

Fear wasn’t the only emotion engendered by the passing of this milestone, of course.  I also managed to run through relief, trepidation, happiness and sadness all within the space of the evening to took me to tie together the loose ends that had been flapping around my prose for the final few months of work I had put into the book.

I think that this range of response isn’t uncommon amongst those who have accomplished a long term and to them monumental task.  It took me seven years to go from the initial idea to the final period at the end of the last chapter in the book, of which two years was solid and disciplined writing.  While I can’t speak for other writers, I think that the shivers of fright I experienced once I knew that my work was finished were related to two subsequent realizations.

First, I knew that my work wasn’t actually finished – it was just beginning anew.  Now that my story has been told, polished and then polished again, it is time to find an audience for it.  This means entering into a fresh world of literary agents, fiction publishers and retailers, a world where my credentials and experience as a freelance writer don’t carry the same weight as they do in my parallel career.  I am gearing up for another learning curve that will have me expanding my horizons a great deal over the coming months.

The second item that caused me to tremble a bit inside was related to the fact that now that my story is done, it is ‘done.’  Certainly, there may be room for improvement, edits, clarifications and the like, but the point I am trying to make is that I have actually followed through and executed on an idea and dream that was very personal, committing it to words and exposing it for everyone to see.  I feel that part of what held me back from fully birthing my novel into the world previous to my final two years of hard work was a lack of faith that I would be able to say what I wanted to say in a manner that other people would fully understand.

I know that I have overcome much of this mental block through completing my novel, but there is the lingering, faint tingle that perhaps I could have been even more eloquent in voicing some of my most internal emotions, desires and ideas within the context of the book.

I plan on documenting as much of this adventure as I can, now that I am ready to begin marketing and presenting my book to the publishing industry at large.  I am sure that there will be much more to write about as time goes on.

Have any of you managed to take your novel from an idea germinating in your head to a bound stack of pages resting on a shelf in a book store?

One of the things I enjoy most about the Miata is that it doesn’t have a roof.  Well, it does have one, of sorts – it’s made of fabric and plastic – but it is almost never raised on my car, except when it has to be stored for an extended period.  I love the feeling of freedom that comes with driving an open car, even if it does mean that people in other vehicles or on the sidewalk feel that they have an open invitation to initiate conversations with me completely out of the blue.  It just comes with the convertible territory.

As someone who has been known to drive home in the rain with the top down, it might surprise you to find out that lately I have been pondering a purchase that is seemingly incompatible with my wide open lifestyle.  That’s right – I have been tempted by a hard top for my Miata.

Why a hard top?  To begin with, there’s no denying that while the Mazda Miata’s cloth roof looks dowdy, when fitted with a hard top the tiny convertible transforms quite beautifully into a sexy-looking coupe.  Past that superficial – although important – consideration, there is also the fact that a hard top would be a practical addition to my track day excursions.  I am planning to hit up both Monticello and Watkins Glen this coming season, and having a hard top on the car during a long trip would help me to pack as much stuff into the vehicle as possible, as well as better prepare me for running in the wet should conditions turn sour.  Visibility with the cloth roof up is sub-par at best when it rains, but a hard top can be had with a defroster and the wider rear glass improves sightlines considerably.

I have also come to the conclusion that a hard top might help me extend the driving season by at least a few weeks at either end.  Given that I live in a part of the world where summer is a fleeting beast almost always seen running towards or away from the observer, a roof over my head could very well goad me into driving the car right up until the snow nips at my garage – as well as protect me from March and April showers.

The final caveat concerning hard top procurement is their relative rarity.  Since the creation of the Spec Miata racing series, which requires a mandatory hard top on every car, these accessories have been harder and harder to find at a reasonable price on the open market – let alone in a color that would match my black Miata.  I have resigned myself to having to over-pay for a solid roof should I eventually cross over to the dark side.

So what is the verdict?  Do I stay true to the spirit of the car and continue my topless adventures, or should I give in to practicality and procure myself a hard top for those special situations?

The most arrogant aspect of our 20/20 rearview vision is that we act almost as though our current vehicular generation will itself somehow escape future criticism.  That’s right – we are so confident in the current state of automotive design that we rarely, if ever consider that as we have judged others, so shall we be judged.  Thus far, the 90’s and 2000’s have escaped the harsh words and jeering laughter of future generations, but our reprieve is only temporary.  There is no doubt that some of the metal plying modern roads will one day be considered as out of step as rooftops encrusted with leather and vinyl.

Let’s put ourselves in a time machine, skip ahead about 15 years and take a fresh look back at what those who can currently count out their age on their fingers might have to say about the most recent crop of automotive designs.

The Bangle Butt

Chris Bangle, who headed BMW’s design studio for a very influential period that saw significant re-imaginings of almost every BMW platform will be primarily remembered for two things.  This is one of them.  The early era of Bangle’s stylistic mandate was dominated by a somewhat lumpy and definitely ungraceful rear end design, starting with the E65 7 Series which debuted in 2002.  Eventually, the shape would spread across the entire brand, where it would be most prominently displayed on subsequent generations of the 5 Series and 6 Series.  BMW would later go on to slim down the mighty 7’s butt, but the damage had been done.  It is hard to imagine the Bangle Butt being viewed in the future as anything but the “continental kit” of high end luxury cars for the 2000’s.

Altezza Taillights

Once upon a time, there was a sedan sold in the Japanese domestic market named the Toyota Altezza.  It featured crystal clear taillight casings that exposed bright red and orange lenses inside, and it actually didn’t look bad on the car it was designed for.  However, it didn’t take long before the more sheep-like elements of the automotive aftermarket began appropriating the style and producing taillights for almost every single other vehicle on the road.  The clear plastic covers proliferated, and the audacity of the interior lenses grew to almost absurd levels, with blue and purple-colored lights eventually making it to a Honda Civic near you.  By the time the Toyota Altezza made it to North America as the Lexus IS, it was hard not to feel bad for those who drove off the lot instantly looking like they had spent a whopping $29.95 on their taillights.  The aftermarket had almost completely destroyed the exclusivity of the design, and 10, 20 or 30 years from now it’s going to look cheap for no fault of its own – and so too shall all the other automotive brands who copied it for hipster cred after the fact.

Don’t get me wrong – I am flattered that people think enough of my opinion to ask what I would do if I were in their shoes.  The truth of the matter is, however, that buying a car is a really personal decision that involves a lot of factors specifically related to the needs of the buyer.  The lifestyle of the person looking to buy something new is going to dictate the number of seats, doors, amount of interior space, vehicle size and personality of the car or truck – or SUV or minivan – in question.

Some brands certainly have a better reputation in certain areas than they do in others, and there is definitely a place for the automotive media to help inform and educate car buyers about the options that are out there waiting for them.  After all, if there wasn’t, then my career wouldn’t exist.  I do however try to remind those who ask my opinion that buying a car is largely a personal decision based on individual needs.  I also attempt to make it clear to them that despite the anxiety they might feel (not uncommonly associated with any major purchase), it’s really hard to buy a bad new car these days, especially in the entry-level segment.

Modern automobiles are so amazingly competent compared to even 15 years ago that its rare to see a vehicle manufactured by a major brand that fails to hit the mark.  First time car buyers especially are presented with a raft of good to great options, with high quality hatchbacks, sedans and even a few coupes all fighting for their thrifty dollars.  Interiors might not be Taj Mahal-esque but they are certainly light years ahead of where the segment was in the 1990’s.  Horsepower has also increased hand in hand with fuel economy, whereas the two were previously strange bedfellows.  It’s honestly a great time to be in the market for a new car, no matter what your price range – at least from a design perspective, if not an economic one.

My recommendation to those who ask my opinion about a car is this:  instead of turning to others to find out what they like in a vehicle, why not spend some time behind the wheel of cars or trucks in your price range to find out what it is that you actually like.  The opinions of others are great to get you pointed in the right direction, but until you’ve sat in the driver’s seat and put some miles between you and the dealership, it’s going to be hard for you to make a confident car-buying decision.

One of the most common red flags that I encounter are what I call “mystery projects.”  These involve project descriptions that are almost entirely devoid of any details – the opposite of the overshare I described in my last red flag entry.  Most of the time they read something like, “Articles wanted – please send bids,” or “Looking for writer to handle web articles – topics will be revealed to selected applicant.”  It evokes a certain “Spy vs. Spy” aura, that somehow the project details can only be revealed to a chosen few at the appointed hour – written in the online equivalent of disappearing ink.

The issue with this type of posting is that writers are essentially going in completely blind.  There isn’t a writing project out there that is so top secret that it can’t be at least described in broad terms.  To be sure, many companies are unwilling to elaborate on their writing needs in detail in a public posting, but at the same time, it is more than acceptable to write “X number of articles needed, Y number of words each required, on the topic of (General Description).”

This simple yet very effective descriptive strategy informs applicants as to the depth and breadth of the project.  It also provides what is possibly the most important detail of all – the topic.  If a writer can’t divine what a client wants them to write about, 90 percent of the time they will move on to the next posting that actually does take the time to fill them in on the project at hand.

As a writer, you also need to consider what a project description that is bereft of detail suggests about a future working relationship.  If the potential client did not have the time or foresight to accurately describe the work order – arguably the most important part of initial communications – then that doesn’t bode well for any communications past that point.

There are plenty of well written project descriptions out there posted by clients who are looking for a competent writer capable of doing a good job.  Skip over the vague, the empty and the confusing projects that you encounter and invest your proposal time in answering those instead.