Creed Album: “Greatest Hits [Digipak]”

Whatever your take on Creed, one must admit they were a successful band with a steadfast and passionate fan base. I brought this album for the extras only. I have all the albums. Whilst rehashing on the 'hits' of Creed on the audio CD what I really wanted was the bonus DVD and watched the video clips and the live performances of this once great band.

It indeed is the greatest music hits collection of Creed and the bonus stuff is well worth watching.

I have never encountered anyone who thinks Creed is just "OK". It's one extreme or the other. As you can see from all of the reviews here, people either love them or hate them. This CD is a decent compilation of the band's music. Would like to have seen "In America" from My Own Prison included.

I won't try to talk any of the Creed haters out of their opinions, that would be a waste of time, but...if they hate the band so much, why would they buy a greatest hits compilation? If they haven't, why waste their time reviewing it??? Their are plenty of bands I don't care for, but if I haven't bought the CD, I don't waste my time reviewing it.

So I was a huge Creed fan that had all three of their CDs, watched them every time they were on T.V. and saw them play live and I was sad when they broke up. Ironically, their breaking up led to one of my favorite bands, Alter Bridge. They rock! Anyway, this Creed Greatest Hits CD/DVD is good and for the average Creed fan, it could even be considered great. But like people before me have said, there could have been a lot more. It's cool to have all the music videos and the three live performances, but how about a whole entire live concert? That would have been nice. Or how about a behind the scenes type thing, or even better, the VH1 Behind The Music special that they did on Creed a while ago? Or some B-sides and live tracks, or their rendition of "Roadhouse Blues"? That would have been nice as well. (Just for your info, Wind-up records is actually very good about releasing stuff like that. See Seether, Finger Eleven, and Evanescence as examples).

The thing I like the least about this release is the fact that in the song, "What's This Life For?" they took out the word "God" when Scott sings, "Don't have to settle no God damn score" So now it just sounds like, "Don't have to settle no ___ damn score" and it sounds horrible. Totally lame.

I guess in the end, it's a good package for Creed fans and considering they didn't have to release anything, we should be happy that we got this.

THE RECORD

It took three years for Creed's greatest hits to be compiled together after the release of the rock group's final record. This time, the compilatiors choose perfect singles from the group's work and created a must have record for any music fan. All of the tracks display not only the sound of the band's musical progression, but their own creed on the ways of the world and our country. The music is powerful and heartfelt.

THE DVD

The vidoes off this disc are awesome. Of course Creed's music is there, but the films to go along with their music are very entertaining. In "My Own Prison", it is filmed in and around an actual prison and this adds evem more flare to the song. The most notable features to the videos are the special effects used in the tracks from Creed's last two albums. "With Arms Wide Open" has the great effect of falling fireballs from the sky and Stapp falling into a water pit. In "Higher", the famous bullet time effects made popular by The Matrix are used in this video. Except, no computers were used. People actually had to freeze and allow the cameras to slowy move around them as the film rolled. "Bullets" is very unique, for it is entirely computer generated and looks like parts to an actual computer game. "One Last Breath" is cool in the effects of Stapp falling from a cliff and giving the illusion of the band perfroming in a sand storm. In "Don't Stop Dancing" the viewer gets to see the beautiful Amie Stapp perform with her husband, and that is worth anyone's time. And there are a couple of live performance vidoes, and those are always fun to watch. This is an awesome greatest hits record, and one I recomend hearing and viewing.

Creed was a popular band when they were together. They were also a very disliked band. Some people say they ripped off some greater bands, mainly Pearl Jam. I say so what. I liked them some still, and they were very famous.

After releasing 3 albums: My Own Prison (1997), Human Clay (1999), and Weathered (2001), we get this Greatest Hits (2004) album. It comes with a bonus DVD of all of their music videos and a few live performances. If you own all of Creed's previous albums, you may still want this for the bonus DVD.

This album has no new songs and no b-sides or rarities. And that is one of the lacking points of this album, besides the 63 minute length and only having 13 songs. They should have included the b-sides: To Whom It May Concern, Young Grow Old, I'm Eighteen, and there are many others that they could have choosed from.

They should have put more songs and made this album as close to 80 minutes as possible. This has all of their biggest hits though.

My favorite two songs off each album being: My Own Prison, What's This Life For off their first and best album My Own Prison; Higher, With Arms Wide Open off their second and most popular album Human Clay; and One Last Breath, My Sacrifice off their third and last studio album Weathered.

I wish they had released more albums and were still a band. You either liked Creed or you hated them. I liked them myself.

If you don't own any of their other albums, buy this since this has all the stuff you probably have heard on the radio, and because of the great bonus DVD. If you own only one or two of their previous albums, pick this up too. If you own all three of their previous albums, then you may not want to get this, but if you do get it, get it for the bonus DVD.

I am hoping that they release a b-sides and rarities album later this year with all there hard to find songs on it. That would make a great companion piece to this album.

So pick this up and listen to the album and watch the bonus DVD. I am sure if you get this, you will like it, like I do.