Chart Watch: Creed

Since I started the week off with a Chart Watch, I thought I'd end it with one. Here now, is one of the most pointless reviews of any album I've ever read in my life. Enjoy!

Title: My Own Prison (1997)
Label: Wind Up
Genre: Alternative

Pro-Social Content: The Band Empathizes with a girl forced to grow up in a dysfunctional family ("Sister") and logns for racial equality and brotherhood among mankind ("One"). The Social commentary "In America" looks askance at abortion, hypocrisy, the worship of money, and promiscuity. Otherwise fatalistic, "My Own Prison" acknowledges Christ's sacrificial death as the pathway to eternal life.

Objectionable Content: Bitter disillusionment is manifested in numerous lyrics confessing misery ("Torn"), anger ("One"), and hopelessness ("Illusion"). "Pity for a Dime" finds lead vocalist Scott Stapp wallowing in self-doubt, confessing a loss of faith. "Ode" expresses self-destructive nihilism. There's also a profane use of God's name on "What's This Life For."

Summary/Advisory: Lots of searching, but positive statements are well overshadowed by an outright rejection of biblical truth. Stapp says, "If it weren't for music, I might have ended up some crazed street preacher." Rock-n-roll is my religion." Not exactly the narrow path. Keep teens out of Prison.

What the fuck? Who on earth looks this deeply into Scott Stapp’s lyrics? I’ll give you one good reason not to listen to Creed and it’s a real simple one: they’re one of the worst fucking bands to have ever come into existence! To be fair, this review might have been well intended, since Creed were immensely popular at the end of the 20^th century, and anyone trying to keep people from listening to Creed is alright with me, regardless of their reasoning. I think my biggest problem with this entry is that he’s giving Stapp way too much credit as a songwriter. Every criticism he has of this album could just as easily be applied to Pearl Jam’s Ten, which is, without a doubt, a vastly superior album in every possible sense (regardless of your feelings toward Pearl Jam, you cannot deny this is true).

Still, I feel this whole review could have been made wholly simpler if he’d just said “Scott Stapp is a fraud and a poor excuse for an Eddie Vedder impersonator, and Creed sound, at best, like the world’s worst Pearl Jam cover band. The only threat they really pose to your teenagers is to their intelligence. If you want to keep your kids out of trouble, don’t let them be the ‘Creed kid’ at school.” It’s simple, effective, and spares us from having to delve into the rather shallow waters of Scott Stapp’s lyrical ineptitude. Also, “Keep teens out of Prison,” may, in fact, be the single lamest closing line in this entire book.