Songoftheday 3/30/22 - When dreaming I'm guided to another world , time and time again at sunrise I fight to stay asleep...

 

 

"Higher" - Creed

from the album Human Clay (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #7 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 30

 

Today's song comes from the rock band Creed, who came together in the Florida Panhandle city of Tallahassee with college mates Scott Stapp and Mark Tremonti. The singer and guitarist recruited drummer Scott Phillips, bass player Brian Marshall, and second guitarist Brian Basher to form the group, which was originally pointed in the "Christian Rock" vein. Basher left them early, leaving the quartet to release their debut album My Own Prison independently in 1997 on the "Blue Collar" label. With its local success in Florida, the band and the album was picked up by the bigger indie Wind-Up Records, which had the power of the BMG distribution arm behind it. The lead single from the record, title track post-grunge anthem "My Own Prison", became a big hit on rock radio in 1997, spending ten weeks at #2 on Billboard magazine's Mainstream Rock chart, and getting to #7 on the Alternative Rock list. Since it wasn't released as a commercial "single" though, it wasn't able to place on the pop crossover Hot 100, though it made it to #54 on the airplay component of the tally. That was followed by "Torn", which took five weeks at #3 on the Mainstream Rock chart. The third offering from the debut, "What's This Life For", tackled teen suicide, and ended up topping the Mainstream Rock chart for six weeks, and got the band major exposure on MTV. The final single from the record, "One", finally put them on the "pop" Hot 100 in Billboard at #70 (when the rules where finally changed allowing album cuts to place on the tally), while hitting #2 on both the Mainstream and Alternative Rock formats. The My Own Prison album peaked at #26 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over six million copies.

As their debut was still selling, Creed released their sophomore effort Human Clay in the autumn of 1999. The first single from the record was the sweeping grandeur of "Higher". Written by Stapp and Tremonti, and produced by John Kurzweg, the song extols the power and beauty of dreaming, allowing your mind to travel to a place it may yet encounter, to see what may be. There's definitely a made-for-radio version of Pearl Jam lurking in the production and pacing of the song, but it doesn't distract too much from the mood, and with their good-ish looks and earnest energy they found themselves stars on MTV and in turn the radio...

 After a long climb on the pop chart, "Higher" climbed into the top ten in July of 2000, eventually spending over a year on the list. The song was huge on rock radio, spending a then-record-breaking seventeen weeks at #1 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart, as well as three weeks on the Alternative Rock list. It even crossed over to the older-skewing Adult top-40 format chart at #5. The Human Clay album, released in September of 1999, topped the Billboard 200 sales tally for two weeks, spending two years on the chart, and going on to sell over eleven million albums. Creed and the album will return to the series.

(9/10)

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Here's Creed performing "Higher" on The Late Show with David Letterman to promote the album...

 The band took to the top of the Rio hotel in Las Vegas for the 2000 Billboard Music Awards...

Boy, do they love their fireworks, with another clip from one of their concerts...

and lastly, from their reunion for the AOL Sessions in 2009...

Up tomorrow: This other canine-styled rapper throws a shindig.