“Higher” by Creed

"Higher" was the lead single from Human Clay, Creed's second album, in 1999, and it's the song that broke them wide open. It was born on stage. Back when their set list was still short enough to run out, crowds got restless, and Scott Stapp would push his bandmates to cook something up on the spot; Scott Phillips kicked off the drum part, Mark Tremonti found the chords over it, and that improvised jam grew into this.

Stapp and Tremonti share the writing credit, with Brian Marshall on bass and John Kurzweg producing, engineering and mixing, and the finished song is all lift: chiming, climbing guitars, a rhythm section that surges and Stapp's big, earnest voice reaching for the rafters, with Tremonti chipping in extra vocals.

It gave them their second number one on rock radio, topping both Modern Rock Tracks and Mainstream Rock Tracks, and in July 2000 it became their first top-10 hit on the Hot 100, peaking at 7. Consequence was still vouching for it in 2024, when its staff put it on a list of post-grunge songs worth standing behind.

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