Human Clay

by

Creed

Edit

Human Clay is the second album by Creed released on September 28, 1999. It was certified 11x platinum and 1x diamond by the RIAA, and is 54th on the top 100 selling albums of all time in the United States (as of February 2007). The album has sold 11,504,000 copies in the USA alone according to Soundscan numbers as of January 2008. It has also been certified 6 times platinum in Canada, 5 times in Australia and 7 times in New Zealand, among others. The fourth single "With Arms Wide Open" has won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Song, and was later used in the soundtrack to the 2009 film Avatar. The album had three videos released from it: "Higher", "What If," and "With Arms Wide Open," the last of which was voted the 92nd best music video of all-time by VH1, who also listed "Higher" one of the greatest hard rock songs of all time in 2009. Human Clay is the only Creed album without a title track.

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." 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.

This was the final album before the band's split in 2004 that featured Brian Marshall on bass guitar; he departed from the band shortly after the tour for the album in August 2000. Mark Tremonti filled as the bassist on their third album, Weathered, while Brett Hestla became their touring bassist. However, the band has since reunited with Marshall in 2009, who performs on the band's new album Full Circle.