A & E

It's everywhere, like a viral video or a computer virus. You hear it in grocery stores, in chain restaurants, at baseball parks across the country:

"Don't stop believin'/hold on to the feelin'/streetlight people."

You want to want to swab your ears with a Q-Tip and make sure you haven't entered a Dante-inspired musical circle of hell. Journey has become, if not exactly cool, omnipresent. It's in part due to the final episode of "The Sopranos" and the infamous final scene where the screen fades to black after Tony Soprano plays "Don't Stop Believin" on a jukebox.

If Tony Soprano's playing it, maybe it is cool. Maybe all the slings and arrows aimed at Journey -- perhaps the most reviled band ever in rock-critic circles -- are off base. Maybe we got it all wrong.

If you were alive during the early '80s, Journey was, for better or worse, part of the soundtrack of your life. You couldn't avoid hearing "Separate Ways" or "Open Arms" or "Faithfully" on the jukebox at a bar or blaring from someone's car radio. The band sold out arenas around the world, and it appeared nothing could stop Journey but Journey itself.

And that's what happened. Bassist Ross Valory and Steve Smith were fired for musical differences, and lead singer Steve Perry eventually left the group to pursue a solo career. Other lead singers were hired, personnel were shuffled more than a worn-out deck of cards at third-rate Las Vegas casino. A planned reunion with Perry fell apart in the late 1990s.

Journey, like so many other groups, was also a victim of each generation's penchant to dispatch the populist fare of the times in favor of something new. The onset of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and flannel shirts swept the stages clear of the Journeys, Foreigners and other bands that had a big sound and a hollow center.

But there are always pockets of true believers who stay true to bands no matter how far they fall off the charts. They erect Web sites, they have shrines in their homes. They never stopped believin', and they must feel no small amount of satisfaction now that Journey is a cultural touchstone of sorts.

Journey's current popularity also may be because of a heightened sense of nostalgia. With gas prices topping $4 per gallon, the war in Iraq dragging on, and home mortgage rates and food prices skyrocketing, perhaps "Don't Stop Believin' " evokes a period of Americana that seems so much simpler and easier to navigate.

As far as music goes, I still think it's fluffy, cotton candy. When I go back to the '80s for music, I'll pull out albums by REM, the Smiths, the Talking Heads or Crowded House.

But every so often, in the right circumstances, a sugary confection is a nice diversion. Even if you never believed.

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