What struck me, musically, during the Sopranos' closing diner scene was how things started with the great Little Feat tune (what the cool kids listened to in 1978-79), and Tony changed it to what the not so cool kids were listening to. Just like high school.

David, you'll make a great revisionist historian one day.

Sgt. Pepper is overrated one week, and Journey rules the next. Uh huh. Perhaps next week you can write about how Leo Sayer is the pre-eminent rocker of his generation rather than Springsteen, and how MC Hammer wasn't that much different than Public Enemy.

I enjoyed Journey when I was 12 and bought "Escape," but as I grew older, I found that for me, they were on the shallow end of the depth pool. Look, you love 'em, God bless - but I'd love to know how many times you REALLY play them over the course of a year.

That being said, the use of the song in the show WAS brilliant, and would be something that Tony would absolutely play. It worked on many levels.

I never thought Journey sucked, per se -- certainly not in the way that Styx and REO Speedwagon make me outright cringe -- but rather that they were bland, without distinction. I'll leave a Journey song on the radio, but it doesn't evoke any particular memories or emotions. OTOH, "Lady" or "I Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore" will send my forefinger flying to the preset buttons on the car radio. Those are like fingernails on a blackboard -- eeeek!

Someone else beat me to it, but I was going to mention that they had a video game. I couldn't have told you which of the pop songs playing in my dorm dining hall back in the 80s was by Journey. But if you asked me what band had its own arcade game... that part I remember. That by itself doesn't mean they suck, but it does shift the burden of proof in my opinion to anyone who wants to argue otherwise.

I mainly read the letters to see if anyone else would mention the video game, but in this case the letters beat the original article. The best part is how the people who insist Journey really sucks seem to have spent more time listening to them than anyone else and some have actually seen them in concert. Journey's defenders appear to be casual listeners, whereas their detractors have apparently turned it into kind of a life's mission to count the ways in which Journey fails as a band.

I was waiting for the 'God-I-am-such-a-music-expert' crowd to respond with universal disdain for Journey, and was pleasantly surprise at some defenders out there.

The pretentious crowd did make a strong showing, though. I enjoy seeing the filter their music comes through - it amuses me greatly. These are the same folks who go to see a blue show and scream for Stevie Ray Vaughn, like he was the first blues musician, or who pick out really obscure bands to 'just love', knowing full well that hardly anyone could possibly dispute the greatness since, well, no one else has ever heard them. Or even better, the ones who go to a show and rave about how 'awesome' it was, never noticing the bassist and drummer were on totally different speeds all night and the singer was flat half the time.

You know what good music is? Music is good when people LIKE it. Saying a certain kind of music sucks is saying that you are smarter than the people who like it. No music sucks, but I sure do HATE some music. Great bands put out sub-par albums, 'bad' bands put out good ones. That's the beauty of music - it's art, to some degree, and has different importance to different people. I am as guilty of bias as anyone - I am a vocalist, so it drives me crazy that Shania Twain is so successful with such a mediocre-at-best voice. But you know what? Lots of people love her, so to them, that's 'good music'. And since I don't know every single Shania Twain fan in the world, I can't really say that makes them all dumber than I am. Journey sold 10 million copies - does that mean at least 10 million people are musically stupid? I kinda doubt that... But hey, if ragging on Journey and singing the praises of Retarted Elf makes you feel superior to someone, go right ahead. I won't stop you. I might laugh at you, but I won't stop you.

David, please. Tell us what you like that's new, but stay away from rock history, okay? You're embarrassing yourself. Saying Journey was closer to the Ramones than Led Zeppelin just reveals a total ignorance of historical context. Punk was a reaction to the bombast that was paralyzing rock at the time, and Journey and Zep were on one side of that divide and the Ramones on the other. That doesn't mean one side was "better," just that there were definitely sides.

In much the same way as Journey found success in mimicking (and embellishing) the music of Styx, later REO, etc, hasn't our fearless music critic foumd his niche by mimicking Christian Bale's character from American Psycho?

Just a thought.

Listen, that song was used to good effect at the end of the show, but let's not go overboard. David Chase once said that often he uses music in the soundtrack that Tony and Carmela might have listened to (Tony's taste kinda seems all over the map). He once told the FBI he owned the new Springsteen box set and he walks around singing "Comfortably Numb" (also used to great effect).

But as far as learning to love Journey...not gonna happen.

Puh-lease. The dumbest lyrics ever.

And I think it was Michael Stipe who said that Perry sings like a duck.

One of my funniest memories of the show was a season or two ago when Tony, in a rare lighthearted mood, walked into his kitchen singing, "sittin' on a pahk bench."

Back to Journey, they're a guilty pleasure of mine, as I like to sing along with Steve Perry (especially "Lovin' Squeezin' Huggin" or whatever that song's called ... the part where he belts out "it won't be loooong..."). At the same time, though, as a teenager in the late 70s/early 80s, I absolutely hated Journey. Somewhere along the line I developed an appreciation for them.