Human Clay
Human Clay is the second studio album by American rock band Creed, released on September 28, 1999, through Wind-up Records. Produced by John Kurzweg, it was the band's last album to feature Brian Marshall, who left the band in August 2000, until 2009's Full Circle.
This article is about the album. For the band, see Human Clay (band).Human Clay
The album earned mixed to positive reviews from critics and was a massive commercial success, peaking at number one on the US Billboard 200 and staying there for two weeks. The album spawned two singles that peaked in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100: "Higher", which peaked at number 7, and "With Arms Wide Open", their only number one single. The album sold over 11.5 million copies in the US alone and over 20 million worldwide, making it the best selling album of Creed's career and one of the best-selling albums in the United States.
Overview[edit]
Human Clay is the only Creed album to not have a title track. The album had three music videos created for it: "Higher" and "What If" in 1999, and "With Arms Wide Open" in 2000.
Title and artwork[edit]
The title of the album comes from a lyric in "Say I" ("The dust has finally settled on the field of human clay"), a song which carries the same message. The cover artwork was designed by Mark Tremonti's brother Daniel, who had previously done the artwork and photography for My Own Prison. According to Mark Tremonti, the album cover represents a crossroad which every man finds himself at in his life and the man of clay represented "our actions, that what we are is up to us, that we lead our own path and make our own destiny."
Release and reception[edit]
Commercial performance[edit]
The album was the band's first to hit number one in the US, where it debuted with first week sales of 315,000, and stayed on top for two weeks.[11] Human Clay has been certified 11× Platinum and Diamond by the RIAA, and is the 54th best-selling album of all time in the United States (as of February 2007).[12] It ranks as the tenth best selling album in the U.S. since the advent of Nielsen SoundScan in 1991, and the ninth best-selling album in the U.S. in the 2000s.[13][14] It has also been certified 6 times platinum in Canada, 5 times in Australia, 7 times in New Zealand, and 4 times in Switzerland among others, selling an estimated 20 million copies worldwide.[15] The album has spent a record 104 weeks on the Billboard chart survey.[16] As of October 2014, it has sold 11,690,000 copies in the United States alone, according to Nielsen SoundScan.[13]
Critical reception[edit]
The album received mixed to positive reviews from critics. Allmusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave the album 4 stars out of 5, concluding that "it may not be the kind of thing that knocks out critics or grunge purists, but it does deliver for anyone looking for direct, grunge-flavored hard rock."[17]
Legacy[edit]
The album's third single, "With Arms Wide Open", won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Song in 2001.[18] At the 28th Annual American Music Awards, Human Clay won the American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Album.[19] At the 2002 Billboard Music Awards, the album won the award for Catalog Album of the Year.[20] Human Clay was ranked number 422 in Rock Hard magazine's book The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time in 2005.[21] Human Clay was ranked number 5 on Billboard's 200 Albums of the Decade in 2009.[22] VH1 listed "Higher" as one of the greatest hard rock songs of all time in 2009. The music video for "With Arms Wide Open" was voted the 92nd best music video of all time by VH1, who also ranked it number 4 on its "25 Greatest Power Ballads" list.[23]