Human Clay by Creed

Human Clay, Creed's second album, came out on Wind-up on September 28, 1999, and it's the hard rock juggernaut at full power. John Kurzweg produced, and it was the last record with bassist Brian Marshall, who left in August 2000, and the last from the original lineup until Full Circle a decade later, with Mark Tremonti on guitar and Scott Phillips on drums.

The sound is massive and earnest: sludgy, churning guitars, thundering drums and choruses built to be sung back by entire arenas. "Higher" soars with a yearning lift, "What If" snarls and chugs with real menace, and "With Arms Wide Open" is the big, tender power ballad that became their only number one single in America. "Are You Ready?" and "Faceless Man" keep the heavy, brooding mood going, and the album's title comes from a line in "Say I", which shares the same message.

Critics were mixed to warm, but the public couldn't get enough. It sat at number one on the Billboard 200 for two weeks, "Higher" reached number 7 on the Hot 100, and the album sold more than 11 million copies in the US alone, with the global tally past 20 million. No Creed record has sold more, and it ranks among the biggest sellers in American history.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.