Excellent!

So lately I've been on a major, nostalgic Destiny's Child kick. And today I found a little something I've been looking for for awhile, and it was only $8.
Yeah, that's right. Survivor.

Back in the day when I had almost no exposure at all to anything other than classical music; back when the only popular music I was familiar with consisted of Britney Spears, the Spice Girls, N'Sync, and Backstreet Boys; before I had ever dated or even experienced strong feelings about boys; that was when I first discovered "Survivor." I can honestly say that no '90s song (although "Survivor" came out in 2001, I will forever associate it with the '90s) affected me as much as this one did. I wasn't aware of Destiny's Child's other work, except for "Bootylicious," but I knew that these girls were fierce! I wasn't aware of the inner turmoil and rivalries or the iron grip Mama and Papa Knowles had on the group. Destiny's Child was as manufactured as the Spice Girls or Backstreet Boys, but I didn't realize it back then. Maybe that's why "Survivor" meant as much as it did for me, and the reason why I could believe and identify with the lyrics. I still love this song, eight years later, and I still know most of the lyrics by heart. It was a real treat to hear the entire album for the first time, from the fun Charlie's Angels tie-in "Independent Women" to the lovely "Emotion."

There's still room for hypocrisy, though, especially with "Nasty Girl," in which group instructs some nameless girl to not "walk out your house without your clothes on." They complain that "You make it hard for girls like myself/who respect themselves and have dignity." My question is this: if your house is made of glass, does the amount of clothing you wear outside it really matter? I'm willing to forgive other lapses in consistency, like the conflicting ideas in songs like "Survivor" ("Now that you're out of my life I'm so much better") and songs like "Dangerously in Love" ("I can't do this thing called life without you here with me"). It's pop music, and it's OK. And then, and always, there is "Survivor," the song I first heard as a painfully awkward and shy sixth grader; the song that assured me that everything was going to be all right. "I'm not gon' stop/I'm gon' work harder!"

Standout tracks: "Survivor," "Emotion"