This is a very bizarre time in the realm of mainstream music.

We have the demon from the most cavernous depths of hell, Clay Aiken, scoring a No. 1 album.

Speaking of cavernous depths, on another level we have Christina Aguilera, a woman of loose morals from the realm of the succubae, vying for any attention she can get – and believe me, there isn’t anyone left to pay attention now that Britney is back in the game.

Continuing her theme of kissing her idol, Britney’s video for her “Does anyone out there still care about me?” It’s a duet with Madonna. “Me Against the Music” features a playful dominator-subservient choreography between the two women.

It’s not incredibly sexy, either. It’s just pitiful. Britney needs to quit while she still has a wee bit of dignity remaining.

Madonna, on the other hand, has the uncanny ability to reinvent herself in seconds, so there is no need for her to quit – she just needs to keep her hands off of a girl young enough to be her daughter.

The situation with Mandy Moore is a little stickier. Her new music is terrible, but I don’t want to totally write her off.

She is the most intelligent and articulate of the succubae and is a decent actress.

With the selection of proper roles, her film career will be a real trip. As for her music, if I hear any more of it I may have to resort to porcelain worship.

In the world of rock, there are a few reasons for sobbing with great tenacity.

We have Limp Bizkit covering The Who, resulting in the musical equivalent of gonorrhea; on top of that, Courtney Love overdosed on OxyContin and lost her child.

The only saving grace for rock right now is The Strokes’ excellent new album and the prospect of future Flaming Lips releases.

The one way you can overcome the monotony of Clear Channel radio is to pop OutKast’s latest album in your CD player and enjoy it for all its splendor.

OutKast isn’t just good – they are amazing. They have managed to experiment with reckless abandon and still come out on top – their songs are still played on the radio and their latest album debuted in the Top 10 on the Billboard album charts.

Split into two separate CDs, one from Andre 3000 called “The Love Below” and another from Big Boi called “Speakerboxxx,” the double album is as schizophrenic as The Beatles’ “White Album” and yet more cohesive than any hip-hop album out there.

“Below” is less a hip-hop album than it is a practice in multiple genres of music, including rock, R&B, pop, funk, hip-hop and jazz.

Andre’s “She Lives in My Lap” and “Hey Ya!” echo this. The former is a spectacular exercise in OutKast’s tried and true synthetic funk prowess, while the latter sounds like an electronic child of Motown.

Big Boi’s CD, on the other hand, is much more the hip-hop record of the two.

Cuts like the hit single “The Way You Move” and “Church,” with its groove-laden harpsichord and 1970s sensibility, reinforce the idea that the spirit of OutKast exists without both Andre and Big Boi participating on each track together.

Vehling is a senior print journalism major and online editor of The Spectator. The Tastemaker is a weekly entertainment column that appears every Thursday.