Creed has long been a fixture in internet culture, first as a convenient punching bag for all that was wrong with the post-grunge movement that dominated the airwaves following Kurt Cobain’s death following Nirvana’s 1991 magnum opus Nevermind, and now as a sort of “return of the millennial” rallying cry in the 2020’s as rock from the 90’s has made a comeback. Neither perspective has ever really been fair to Creed and lead singer Scott Stapp– the band has sold over 53 million albums worldwide throughout their career (i.e. clearly people loved and listened to them) and contemporaries like Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam sang with the same “yarling” vocal approach to critical acclaim over the years. In other words, no one really gave a shit that Vedder droned on with a nasal baritone and failed to enunciate his words, and yet Stapp was the one who sort of took the hit for the genre’s over the top idiosyncrasies. And on the flip side, the recent infatuation with Creed is the natural evolution of internet culture that initially rejects the popular thing until decades later it romanticizes the thing they once despised. It’s a distinctly American thing quite honestly– people who earned their hipster card bagging on Creed during the previous 20 years have finally owned up to enjoying their music, and eventually they’ll fall out of favor again. Why we do this timeless tango I don’t know, but sure as the sun shines we’ll do it.
Human Clay is an album filled to the brim with distorted fuzzy guitars that combine with Stapp’s cloudy vocals and a chugging rhythm section to drown you in all the post-grunge heaviness your head can take. There’s a ton of filler here, but you simply can’t beat the almost biblical journey of “With Arms Wide Open” or the absolute shredder of “Higher”. It makes putting up with the majority of the other songs worth every second.
A final note– I’ve listened to a ton of albums and seen a ton of album covers this year (Human Clay is #330 in fact), and boy this might be one of the worst. It’s like they grabbed someone who was a freshman studying graphic design in school and gave that person 20 minutes to come up with the cover. I know it was 1999 when these things were still being worked out, but considering this album was released during the age when streaming services didn’t exist and you had to buy a physical CD to listen to their music (album covers being a critical marketing tool), it’s either a testament to the band’s musical output or a sheer act of God that Human Clay sold over 20 million records and was certified diamond.
Standout Songs: “With Arms Wide Open”, “Higher”, “Are You Ready?”
