Just so you know—noise-canceling headphones aren’t better for your ears, except that you can play them at lower volumes. Noise-reducing, earplug-style headphones will give you exactly the same benefit.
@curtaincall: I don’t see the e2c at Target online—can you give me a link? Those for $50 would be a great deal!
Mirza, the noise-canceling headphones you can get for $25 will probably sound bad. But they could be OK, and you won’t make yourself deaf. Go for those, or if you want to move up, look at something like the Sennheizer PXC 150 or 250 ($100 and $150, respectively).
Or, if that’s a little too pricey, you could try some regular sealed headphones like the AKG K26P—regular old headphones, no fancy noise-cancellation, but sealed well enough that you can listen to music while traveling without killing your eardrums.
All those links go to headphone.com. I’ve bought headphones from them in the past, and they are very nice. They’re biased towards extremely pricey headphones, but they have extensive reviews and lots of recommendations.