Creed: Awesome or Sucks?

I'm getting out of my league here, discussing a band I only know peripherally...

anyway, like i say, could you two please argue with EACH OTHER as you are claiming completely totally opposite and contradictory things abt creed; I REITERATE I HAVE NEVER HEARD A NOTE BY THEM!!

whether or not authenticity is a feature of this or that rockband, the WORRY ABOUT AUTHENTICITY is central to the defn of rock as a form: that's the point i'm making

linkin park lyric that is in a panic abt authenticity:
What do I do to ignore them behind me?
Do I follow my instincts blindly?
Do I hide my pride / from these bad dreams
And give in to sad thoughts that are maddening?
Do I / sit here and try to stand it?
Or do I / try to catch them red - handed?
Do I trust some and get fooled by phoniness,
Or do I trust nobody and live in loneliness?
Because I can’t hold on / when I’m stretched so thin
I make the right moves but I’m lost within
I put on my daily façade but then
I just end up getting hurt again
By myself [myself]
I ask why, but in my mind
I find I can’t rely on myself

note keyword: phoniness

Pearl Jam offered salvation through suffering - I know, when I was 17 and 18, I felt soothed listening to Eddie villify himself and The World. In a sense, he was dying for my sins, absolving me of my mistakes and faults by sticking my nose in the doo-doo. (Once a Catholic, always a Catholic.) Creed offer a guilt-free epiphany - doesn't matter what you did, or how bad you were, because you're free now. Hell, "My Sacrifice" manages to completely gloss over the messy sacrifice part; it just skips to the holy hossanas and the glorious light beaming through stained glass windows. It's the same sort of escape offered by any pop act, but it's couched in this portentious rhetoric, and offered via grandiose musical gestures that signify significance (or, at the very least, importance, in that BOOMING VOICE OF GOD manner).

Whether the band MEANS any of it or not is immaterial - the SONGS mean it. Pearl Jam's long since given up on the tortured messianic path to riches, but listening to _Ten_ nowadays (speaking as someone who was there when it happened), the power's still there.

Step One: Write down the first contextless sentense fragment that comes to your mind. (For example "With Arms Wide Open");
Step Two: Record yourself repeating the phrase incessantly, without clarifying what you are referring to, preferably in a parody of the singer from Jars of Clay pretending to be the singer from DC Talk pretending to be a very boring version of Eddie Vedder...on Thorazine.
Step Three: Record a dull corner-bar band with HORDE aspirations doing listless, sleepy "anthemic", "passionate" "riffage" behind the prerecorded vocal.
Step Four: Subtly insert a few subliminal messages advertizing Tim LaHayes new apocalyptic book "The Turner Diar....Left Behind."
Step Five: Payola Payola Payola.
Step Six Six Six: Sings the praises of Mammon for you new found wealth and "critical acclaim" from such respected musical experts such as the cast of the 700 Club.

Become rockist aged 14

Start defending prog aged 16

Give up and Get the Gold Ultradisk Box Set of Michael Bolton at age 18.

It is waaaaaaaaaaay too long, though- more than 5 minutes. If you edited it down to 2:30, it would be a much better song, since it's not really strong to stand up to itself before it starts getting ridiculously repititous by the end. Actually, end it at 2:52, right at the end of the chorus, and you'd have a cute little pop song.

With Arms Wide Open, on the other hand, sounds like it took all the lousy parts of Higher, slowed them down & muffled them, and then stirred an extra bit of blandness.

I can't believe I'm defending Creed here, but all the "it just sucks" answers were ticking me off.

that creed video where they are 3D animated angelic/spartan warriors in some sort of bad fantasy scape, battling some weird alien lobster creatures with long swords and crazy kung fu skillz

1. their sound is an amalgam of traits pilfered from bands i like. scott stapp's voice is so affected, like the worst moments of scott weiland filtered through days of the new, with a dash of layne stayley. he's more histrionic than mariah carey. plus, the guitars sound awful, compressed to hell and run through the most irritatingly banal fuzz box ever made (possibly the DOD Metal pedal?). basically, they take the worst sonic qualities of grunge and make them even more irritating than that. 2. nothing they are doing is particularly interesting in the way that, say, chart pop is interesting to me. i like that brandy single because it's funky in a weird way, and i like songs about wronged lovers. on the other hand, i can't figure out what the hell creed songs are about, and they aren't interesting on any musical level. they simply take what others have done, and make it worse.

WILL NO-ONE COMMENT ON THE BRILLIANCE OF THIS NAME? Mr. Darnielle, we have a winner.

but creed still sux

But any self-respecting trailer-trash mullethead would not like Creed when they have their Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Metallica, and AC/DC.

I just see the trailer trash mullethead kids breaking beer bottles on the side of a junked-out double-wide saying, "TOOL IS THE FUCKIN SHIT!" instead of "CREED IS THE FUCKIN SHIT!"

Creed is pop music for "Ordinary Fucking People."

you know anthony, if yer gonna like cheese we gotta get you to like higher-quality cheese not cheez-whiz like creed!

I'd say this is almost true.

And how wrong you are.

The new Matchbox Twenty stuff is shockingly fun to listen to.

They have a new album?

i encountered "my sacrifice" in public for the first time in who knows how long the other day