I don't know quite how to react to this. Maybe it's because I'm twenty-five years old and I'm more likely to be huddled in a corner clinging to my Joy Division records than being caught dead with this in my house. I know I'm supposed to be serious about this, if only because it's my job. Then I ratinonalize: maybe I got sent this because I'm about as Irish as it gets when you have immigrant parents. Hey, just because I can carry an E.C. passport doesn't mean I somehow am an expert on the fusion of disco and Jig.

You heard me. Disco and Jig. The opening track of the "B*Witched" disc is titled "Let's Go (The B*Witched Jig)." That is, a fiddler added to a cocktail of smarmy Girl Power emotion and platform tennis shoes. Add this to the repugnant cover art of four Spice Girls-knockoffs, flying through the orange air wearing the latest rave-appropriated fashions, with a disc full of dance-with-an-Irish-folk-twist, and you've got a recipe for something akin to an intellectual meltdown.

Boring, been-there, dance beats and stale melodies make up the musical portion of the evening. And I'm not much for the songwriting here. "To You I Belong" is the ballad of yearning, complete with tin whistle, and lyrics that read, "Whenever dark turns to night/ And all the dreams sing their song/ And in the daylight forever/ To you I belong." The rest is just like this. Examples from "Like The Rose" are: Can't you see that we belong)/ Oh how I want it to be/ So tell me do you feel the way I feel?" Girl power is present in "We Four Girls," "So you want it/ Come and get it/ Gonna tell you why/ Believe it/ You can do it/, And reach up high." I don't feel much about this sort of plain, uninspired, pop-radio lyrics aimed at the under-fifteen set the grownups think might understand.

Then again, one caveat - I am not fifteen. The lighting designer who did a recent taping of them performing at a Disneyland television event wasn't either. The general concensus seemed to be, "Oh. Another one. So what?" For two professionals who are at least a decade past the target group, maybe our opinions aren't valid. We are not, after all, The Market. This will do fine with The Market, I'm sure.

But wait a minute! When I was twelve, I bought my first record. It wasn't the flavor of the moment like Debbie Gibson or Tiffany, though their music was lame. I went out and bought Genesis' "Three Sides Live." This is the absolute truth. My Genesis collection was sacred to me at thirteen. I cried when "We Can't Dance" came out because I felt so betrayed. And then I got into Ennio Morriccone soundtracks. Morbid childhood? You bet. After that, it was Peter Gabriel, The Cure, and then Industrial music.

I was once The Market. I STILL didn't listen to crap like this. I listened to music that was different, challenging, and beautiful. So did most of the girls my age I knew. We weren't subject to a marketing machine the likes of which young girls today are subjected to. But they have a choice. I still believe that they're all as smart and independent as we were, independent enough to know that they're being pandered to in a way that's more subversive than anything the Spookies could bring into their homes. This technicolor-splashed high-concept trash they're being sold isn't the kind of self-image reinforcement that they need. Please, teenage girls of the world, tell me you know that.