Creed - My Own Prison

It took a few years, but the "Seattle sound" migrated south. In 1997 Creed emerged from the sunny state of Florida wielding dark and dulcet postgrunge tones. Their 10-cut debut, My Own Prison, has became a surprising success by filling a niche for needy teen gloom-rockers. Singer Scott Stapp has the soulful and rich Eddie Vedder inflections down pat, but despite Creed's slightly hackneyed approach, My Own Prison is full of strong, memorable, tuneful songs (and numerous solid singles) coupled with compelling and dark emotions. Titles such as "Illusion," "Unforgiven," "What's This Life For," and "Torn" clearly peg Creed as dour introverts. But despite lyrics such as "Their souls are lost / Because they could never find / What's this life for," Creed is musically tight and dynamic, drawing on melodies that are often moving and uplifting... in a depressing sort of way, of course. --Katherine Turman Amazon.com

Creed Great First album !!!!!!!!!!!!

A great cd to is My Own Prison alot of good songs on here. Alot high place fast songs on here like unforgiven and ode and my own prison is a great song. So is One a vey clever song well written are these songs on here. Feeeling bad or good it is great cd to listen to. June 29, 2008

Good Start

Never was a big fan of christian metal as it's almost a contradiction in concepts. For spiritual uplift I'll just listen to Handel's 'Messiah' or just great standard christian rock like Kansas. Anyway, this was a good start for Creed: too bad they couldn't keep it up. I guess God isn't all that inspiring when it comes to hard rock or metal. 'My Own Prison' and 'Unforgiven' are the best songs on the album I think. One thing about Creed is that, despite having great vocals and bass, there is really no solo guitar work to speak of and that's pretty disappointing. Still a good album though and that's why I give it 4 stars for effort. April 5, 2008

Good Start

Creed does a good job. I can't say I can listen to them long though. I seem to get a headache everytime I listen. Something in the music doesn't agree with me, but still good. March 30, 2008

Creed What happen?

Now for starters I like all kinds of music. So I am not one those MTV TRL people, I know music! I like everything from Ozzy to Lamb of God to Alice In Chains to Slayer to Tool to NIN to Seether, to Pantera to Type O to etc etc etc. Now when I turned on my radio in my car and the song My Own Prison comes on for the 1st time. So I went out and picked up this cd and I was like wow this whole cd is good. I can pop it in and play it from the 1st track to the last. Now about the time their next cd comes out I picked it and played it and I had to take it out of my cd player and look to see if it's the same band. Sure info it was so I gave it away to my brother. After hearing that cd I have hated them ever sence then. All you need from these guys is this cd don't pick up anything else from these guys or you will having a $15.00 toy for your dog. January 9, 2008

The debut rocker - 3.5 stars

This debut (sort of) album from Creed had people talking right from the word go. Though I must admit to being fooled by the cover art and thinking they were a hardcore band! Hey, we all have our bad days...

But overall this is a solid affair. An album from a band I always equated as slugging it out with Nickelback for the most successful mainstream hard rock band of their era. And on this album we find much of Creeds musical journey already complete, this doesn't sound like a debut for the most part and Stapp certainly doesn't have much in the way of youthful uncertaintly about him, his self assurance staying the course for the whole show. And a show it is as the band move through songs with delicate sections such as One and others where are repetitive bludgeoning is the order of the day as per Illusion and the relentless repetition of it's title towards the end of the song. The band is able to rock out like the young lads they still were on the opening couple of numbers with their beefed up rifferama and then later in the album have the restraint to take a backseat to let Stapps vocals drive the car on the tune Sister. There is also a judicious use of studio tricks in some of the songs.

Some editions came with the bonus track Bound and Tied which has an interesting low end rumble underneath Stapp crooning melodramatically over the top. A useful track and you should try to get an edition with this song on it if possible though it does drone on a bit.

As debut efforts go this is pretty good. The band would get a touch better at pacing their aural attacks for added drama and Stapp got a little better at his mid range croon. But even at this point in his career he could belt out with power. A good album but not a great one and a collection more for the fans, as casual listeners are probably better served by the greatest hits collection initially released in 2004. November 17, 2007

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