One of the most satisfying CD purchases of my recent past (ie. the last fortnight) is My Own Prison, by everyone's favourite turn-of-the-millenium band, Creed. Of course, I am aware of how incredibly daggy Creed is these days. No self-respecting music critic will ever admit to any sort of appreciation for Creed, apart from their appreciation of Creed's uncanny ability to write dreary, middle-of-the-road, pseudo-spiritual, post-Pearl Jam, commercial rock-radio shite that millions of people were suckers for.
But I am so happy to be in possession of their debut album because it is the completion of my Creed collection. Apart from the superfluous Greatest Hits that was rushed out last year to try to wring a few more dollars out of the Creed fans now turned Nickelback fans, I've now got the set. And My Own Prison is up there with Human Clay and Weathered.
As I wrote this I was trying to decide if I think Human Clay is Creed's best work. And I was thinking 'Yeah, I'll say that Human Clay is still the best, but My Own Prison comes pretty damn close.' But then, I realised that as I was just listening to My Own Prison, I didn't have to put up with those over-played icons of 2000, Higher and With Arms Wide Open. While they are nice pieces of inspirational ambiguity, I like that the only songs on My Own Prison that I've heard before are the ones I eagerly downloaded on Napster back in Year 10. Still, there are great songs on Human Clay, so I'm wavering. Maybe I'll make them even. And it's common knowledge that Weathered, the third album, is not their best. There's not much distance between best and worst on the Creed spectrum, it's just a matter of where you place that spectrum within your own scale of music taste.
Creed, in their eight years and three albums, sold around 30 million CDs around the world, most of those in America. What is it that particularly endeared this band to the consciousness of the western world those few years ago? Why that combination of notes, chords, bad distortion, and lyrical mix of disenchantedness and hope?
I think that Creed resonated with so many people because firstly, it was a slightly different Pearl Jam, with some big, fat redneck southern chords that were part of the post-grunge, pre-nu-metal sound. But that's still a just a musical reason. What differentiated Creed from the Pearl Jams of the world? I think it's because their message resonated with a generation who knew conservative Christian values, but had questioned them and rejected them. I think this was especially true in America, and a bit less so in other parts of the world.
Also, among Christians, Creed was fairly popular due to the fact that they were a 'secular' rock band that Christians could listen to without feeling bad, because they sang songs with a lot of allusions to Christian themes. A Christian could feel cool because they were listening to the most popular band in the world, while not feeling guilty, because the band were 'Christian' enough.
Now consider this: Scott Stapp, Creed's songwriter and singer, grew up as the son of a fire-and-brimstone pentecostal pastor who would beat him, becoming disillusioned with Christianity as he grew up. This is the gist of the story. This disillusionment seems to be particularly with a hypocritical, 'cultural Christian' type of Christianity- the kind that says because you're American you're Christian, and vice versa.
And so the way this perspective informed Creed's music must be taken into account. The song In America, from My Own Prison, seems to illustrate Stapp's stance:
Only in America we're slaves to be free
Only in America we kill the unborn to make ends meet
Only in America sexuality is democracy
Only in America we stamp our god "In God We Trust"
Not surprisingly, with this disillusionment with what many call truth, there is a certain search for truth in their music, that often ends in a place of ambiguity. The chorus to the song goes like this:
What is right or wrong?
I don't know who to believe in
My soul sings a different song
In America
I am right and you are wrong
No one's right and no one's wrong
In America
This resolution of ambiguous truth is one that many good post-modernists today would applaud. Yet Stapp isn't singing this in a joyful, Polyphonic Spree-esque celebration of fluffy ambiguity. Stapp is angry. This isn't a resolution- he wants the truth. He wants to know right and wrong. He wants people to know right and wrong. This resonates with those people from a Christian background, with a respect for truth and a sense of moral right and wrong. This is indicative of his respect for a lot of conservative Christian values, despite rejecting Christianity.
It seems that one of his major problems with Christianity and the church was hypocrisy he'd seen, and which many others of his generation would understand. So comes the second verse:
Church bell's ringing
Pass the plate around
The choir is singing
As their leader falls to the ground
Please mister prophet man [is he talking to Jesus or the pastor?]
Tell me which way to go
I gave my last dollar
Can I still come to your show?
I wouldn't say Creed are post-Christian in their perspective- more pseudo-Christian than anything. Alluding to Christian themes without using any definitive words, especially evident on the Human Clay album, but not rejecting those views completely either.
Plenty of people, especially the media, wanted to label Creed a 'Christian band', and the Stapp would flatly deny that, but at different times would have varying answers. There was the 'I used to be a Christian, but not anymore' line and the avoid-giving-any-definite-answer line. Scott Stapp didn't talk about being a Christian until this interview in 2004, after Creed had finished, when he said he had "come full circle" spiritually.
So it's likely he does not still hold all the views he espoused while fronting Creed. Nevertheless, it seems like Creed's message resonated with people partly because of that pseudo-Christian viewpoint.
