Don't get me wrong, I really love her, but I never gave her much credit on a non-math/science-oriented creative or emotional level until now.

The biggest clue to the change was in the music she brought home. She was all excited when she made me listen to her noise. So, I'm nodding my head and smiling and saying "that's nice" or "wow, that's interesting", meanwhile planning how I should schedule my ton of laundry around her's. I've been ignoring her since she could talk, so I'm a pro. Anyway, I was feeling kind of guilty for my feigned interest, so I listened, kind of shocked.

The songs were angered, disappointed and disillusioned with everything from religion to politics to relationships. She impressed me with the passion she related to it, and made me appreciate even the stuff I didn't really like. That is what I always thought music should be to a person: full of strong and emotional things.

So, to get to my heretofore extremely well hidden agenda --this is a defense of, not teenage angst or dispassion, but Pearl Jam. And no, I don't lust after them --that would seem disrespectful of their talent.

What I hate more than a lot of things is people saying Pearl Jam sold out. They are pass, in terms of those seeking the absolute cutting edge -- which in most cases is just what makes them feel cool for listening to it before anyone else. A general case of I-have-something-you-don't-have that, for some reason with convoluted roots in childhood, seems to confer some kind of "coolness." One of my friends doesn't like them because "Eddie Vedder is annoying because he tries to be some kind of tortured artist or something." When he said he hated the fame in Rolling Stone, people said no one was forcing him to make all that money.

I think it's illogical to take someone, like Vedder or Michael Jackson or anyone else for that matter, who is a very private person thrust into the limelight by a very public passion, and criticize them for selling out. I am a very private person, even having my picture taken for this thing was traumatic, but I chose to endure the publicity of it because I had something to say.

For alternative bands, selling out seems to mean becoming popular. If it does, then should groups maintain their integrity by denying access of their music to everyone who wants it? That seems like self-righteous posturing to me. And it's ridiculously hippocritical that someone like Dr. Dr -- who went on MTV and said with pride that he's in the business for the money and will continue to do whatever makes him more money -- isn't considered a "sell out." The thing he is making money on is the integrity and passion of groups before him, like P.E. who sparked a kind of music that is the voice of another generation from area's which haven't have a voice before.

I think more so than eyes or whatever, music is the window to the soul, and any music is good if it makes you feel something. Which is why I have a hard time understanding how people who claim racial sensitivity can support groups like Guns N' Roses who are so blatantly racist. I even like their music, but I can't enjoy it knowing what they are preaching. Similarly, TuPac's new video about how men should respect their women seems ludicrous to me in light of the way he has spoken about and portrayed women. It makes me uncomfortable because in light of his past, it's almost a mockery of the whole issue of women's rights.

You can tell a lot about someone by what they listen to. By my estimation, I see two kinds of inspiration for musical endeavor -- pure, all-American capitolistic greed and self-expression --among many inspirations for musical tastes. Different people listen to music for different reasons and power to them and all their reasons, but for me, music has to make you feel something. Something that reaches deep into what I think, feel and am by making me think harder or be like "hey, I know how that is", and I can't enjoy it if it goes against something in me.