Don't Believe The Hype
by Matt Rich

I thought it might be a bit of a change of pace to write about a non-legal topic this month. That's the good news. The bad news is that you're about to get my two cents once again. As always, you can feel free to agree or disagree.

Okay, this has gone on long enough. What in God's name is going on with rock music these days? Watch the Super Bowl: Led Zeppelin now sells Cadillacs? (I guess they wanted to top The Who, who sell Nissans.) Whatever. We've got bigger problems to deal with. Since I want to limit my ranting to less than 100 pages, I'll just pick two targets today. These two parties, in my humble opinion, fairly represent the current surrender to mediocrity that has descended on what used to be known as rock and roll. I'm talking, of course, about Britney Spears and Creed.

Let me start with Britney. She plays no musical instrument. She writes few songs. She has no special vocal range or talent. So, will someone please tell me why she sells fifty trillion records? I know the answer, and I'm sure you do too.

However, going by that logic, why aren't any of the girls currently employed at Mint's or the Sundowner or Pure Platinum selling 50 trillion records? (Editor's Note: These are some of the Gentlemen's Clubs in the greater Buffalo area, located just across the border in Fort Erie, Ontario. Matt Rich has never been to any of them. Brad Shelton has been to all of them.) They dance and dress just as suggestively as Ms. Spears, possess the same "assets," and probably sing about as well. Heck, they even wear the same schoolgirl outfits! This seems altogether unfair to me.

Yet, this young lady currently resides at the apex of American popular culture. For proof of this, all one needed to see was network television on Super Bowl weekend. Britney was the host and "musical" guest on Saturday Night Live. After being introduced by her equally no-talent boyfriend (the ubiquitous Justin from N'Sync), Spears lip-synched her way through two of the numbers off of her most recent magnum opus. This called to mind some of the great musical performances in SNL history - like Vanilla Ice and New Kids on the Block.

Then, on Sunday, we got to witness Britney engage in time travel in order to sell Pepsi-Cola. Amazing - she can't sing, yet she has the ability to traverse the space-time continuum in the name of a soft drink. Let's see the girls at Mint's do that!

In her defense, at least Britney Spears is not pretending to be something other then what she is. She delivers bubblegum pop music with just enough of a sexual undertone to keep post-pubescent men interested in how she's "no longer a girl but not yet a woman." She does not hold herself out to be an artist with anything all that important to communicate through her music - but Creed does, and that makes them the greater evil.

Creed, like Britney Spears, also sells 50 trillion records, also comes out with a new album every six months, and also infects MTV and the FM dial like an incurable disease. The difference is that people buy Creed records thinking, "This is a serious rock band! See, my tastes do go deeper than N'Sync and 98 Degrees."

How misguided are the masses sometimes. Creed is nothing more than the Backstreet Boys with guitars - a promotional device designed to move units not through credibility or artistic merit or message, but rather through image. Note the leather pants, the styled hair, the sufficiently rebellious earrings. Note Scott Stapp, the lead singer, yammering away on VH1 about having to turn his back on his born-again Christian upbringing to front the 21st century version of Winger. Note Mark Tremonti (the guitar player) on the same program making the bold proclamation that, "I just can't play unless my leg is up on something." Note that their last two inescapable hits, "Higher" and "My Sacrifice" can be played on top of each other and still sound the same! (A brilliant demonstration by those radio pioneers, Opie and Anthony.)

Consider also the following, direct from Creed's own website: "It's not easy to find a success story as genuine as Creed's in popular culture these days when considering all of the carefully scripted rises to glory and the falls that inevitably follow careers built on hype. If any band in recent years can claim to have ascended strictly on its own merits, it's Creed."

Are you freaking kidding me? Someone call the arrogance police and then the reality fire department. Not following a script? On their own merits? They're following a script written long before Stapp quit the altar boys' union.

In the interests of disclosure, its important to note that I am just about the biggest Pearl Jam fan this side of Eddie Vedder's ex-wife (but probably not for the same reasons). This is why Creed bothers me so much - because their music is nothing but a second-rate imitation of Pearl Jam's. Creed's "script" is the same script used by any other cover band - imitate the sound of the originals and hope chicks dig it.

Creed can lay no claim to credibility. Their sound is a weak amalgamation of Vitalogy-era Pearl Jam combined with just a pinch of Alice in Chains and late Soundgarden. These were among the bands that freed us from the big hair and spandex hell of the late 1980's. Thirty years from now these bands will still be relevant, just as the Doors, Pink Floyd, and the Rolling Stones are still relevant today. Will Creed? Not unless it's a Volkswagen ad.

It all makes me rather angry. It also makes me feel a bit sorry for the masses that consume this corporate, manufactured fallacy. Look, I'm sure there are some reading this who love Creed and feel insulted by what I'm saying. My answer is this - if you like their music and it gives you pleasure (or some amount of distraction from, say, Commercial Paper), then more power to you. All I would ask is that you dig a little deeper.

So, Creed fans, go pick up a copy of Nirvana's "Bleach" or one of the 72 live shows from the 2000 tour that Pearl Jam put out. After doing so, I defy you to then tell me that Creed is what they want you to believe they are. Let's hope that their 15 minutes will soon be coming to a close.

In the meantime, I'll be in line for tickets to the forthcoming Britney Spears movie. I wonder if it will be as strong an Oscar contender as the Mandy Moore movie is