Ever since the dawn of rock, the age of Teeny Bopper music has followed. From Elvis to the young likings of the Backstreet Boys, this kind of music has won the hearts of many young people.

If you really want to call it music nowadays.

Sure, Elvis was really good in his hay-day, but do you really find that in today's society? Today's wide variety of preteen-audience bands (i.e. Britney Spears, N SYNC, 98 Degrees, etc.) gives variety to music, but what about its quality?

We will admit that we put in a couple of Teeny Bopper music albums to listen to now and then-the Beatles, ABBA (didn't they get into that audience in their rise to fame?), and even Aqua-but do not totally connect with the band.

Music is music, maybe our counter-part should get a grasp on that.

Okay, okay-maybe we should not get into stereotypes, but isn't Teen Bopper music really targeted for little, obsessive pre-teens? Not for juniors in high school? Maybe that explains why dolls are made of Spears, puppets of N SYNC, and Backstreet Boys featured on Teen People every single week.

And, think back in history: aren't there screaming little girls at every preteen band performance? Jerry Lee Lewis (who married his 14-year-old second cousin when he was in his 30s), the Rolling Stones, New Kids on the Block, and even Madonna (Remember her tour with the Beastie Boys as the opening act?)-you can hear the "Aah!!" of thousands of girls in all of these musicians' concerts.

And what about folks who never get out of this phase? Like Phish Heads and Grateful Dead followers? Well, pre-teens never grasped onto these kinds of bands. Sadly, people over their teen ages picked up on this and never let go…so when band members in the band die like Jerry Garcia, the band is gone, and what do these die-hard fans do?

Why is the pop music of today so bland these days? Where are the freakin' instrumentalists? Where is the drummer? The bassist? Hello?! Think about why the Beatles can still make plenty of money today, even with a second anthology album and why Buddy Holly is still remembered: they are real musicians when it comes to playing their own music, not like "bands" today that just dance and sing. People who can sing opera aren't called musicians, they are singers. For all anyone knows, these pop singers (not musicians) could have been plucked off the street.

Which they have been.

Dear counterpoint writer: bands have come a long way for stardom…their chemistry is sometimes too comfortable so that it leads to break ups (Soundgarden and Van Halen to name a couple.) But pop groups, for instance, the Spice Girls, were girls who auditioned from all over England were picked, slapped together, and (with just a lot of promotion) became famous.

Who was also in a similar position: "Ice, Ice, Baby" himself, Vanilla Ice. This little rich boy was turned into, by his record producers, into the ghetto thug Eminem of the late '80s and early '90s. Let us also not forget ABC's documentary "Making the Band" that hand-picked boys to be in a group and filmed the process of making music.

We guess it looks like the N SYNC boys really are puppets; puppets for money.

Of all the changes in time, music will change accordingly. For instance, New Kids on the Block's Marky Mark (and the fun bunch) broke away the group to do his own stint, and look where he is now: Mark Wahlberg the actor, trying to get rid of his New Kids past.

Vanilla Ice went from copying David Bowie's "Under Pressure" tune to now, hard, rap rock after the public found out about his real background. Plus MC Hammer left his "too legit, too quick" rap career to become a preacher.

Screwy, isn't it?

So, Lady of Pro-Pop, do not think of pop as the cream of all music-Teeny Bopper tunes come and go through many phases, just like all types of music-do not stereotype non-pop music as not being equal to your brand of tune-age. People sure do like music, we will attest that we like some of it all, but we all do not attach ourselves to it. We welcome the change.