“Believe” by Staind

"Believe" led the way into The Illusion of Progress, Staind's sixth album, in the summer of 2008, and it finds the band sounding more hopeful than they ever had. All four members wrote it, Aaron Lewis, Mike Mushok, Johnny April and Jon Wysocki, and it's a ballad about getting through the hard stretch rather than going under. Johnny K produced and engineered, Ryan Williams mixed, and the polish is pure modern rock radio.

Critics split down the middle: some welcomed the brighter outlook, others said they'd heard this Staind song before. Rock radio didn't mind; it sat at number one on the Alternative Airplay chart for three weeks and went top five at Mainstream Rock. Christopher Sims directed the video, which follows a man hitting the road across America after walking out on a relationship gone bad.

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