“The Best of Creed” track listing (Vinyl)
Side A:
01. Higher (Radio Edit)
02. One Last Breath
03. My Own Prison (Radio Edit)
04. Overcome
05. What If (Radio Edit)

Side B:
01. My Sacrifice
02. With Arms Wide Open (Single Version)
03. Torn (Radio Edit)
04. Rain
05. What’s This Life For

“The Best of Creed” track listing (CD/Digital)
01. Higher (Radio Edit)
02. One Last Breath
03. My Own Prison (Radio Edit)
04. Overcome
05. What If (Radio Edit)
06. My Sacrifice
07. With Arms Wide Open (Single Version)
08. Torn (Radio Edit)
09. Rain
10. What’s This Life For
11. Hide *
12. A Thousand Faces *

In the mid-1990s CREED rose out of Tallahassee, Florida with singer Scott Stapp and guitarist Mark Tremonti bonding over a similar love for guitar-heavy music. These two crafted raw, real, emotional rock, and soon after welcomed bass player Brian Marshall and drummer Scott Phillips into the fold.

The band formed at an interesting time in rock music. NIRVANA frontman Kurt Cobain had passed away in 1994, and although the grunge sound was still thriving, it was also evolving. Newer bands were maintaining that guitar-centered hard rock sound but also making it a bit bigger and less lo-fi.

So, here come CREED with their powerful, soaring vocals, crunchy riffs, and deeply emotional lyrics forming the blueprint for an anthemic post-grunge band. The band’s debut album, 1997’s “My Own Prison”, was a hard rock beast with powerful songs such as the album’s title track and “Torn” ruling the rock and alternative charts at the time, but it was 1999’s “Human Clay” that took CREED to the masses. Songs such as “Higher” and “With Arms Wide Open” were radio anthems and would not go away.

CREED band’s members went on hiatus from the band after 2001’s “Weathered”. Tremonti, Marshall, and Phillips formed the rock band ALTER BRIDGE with Myles Kennedy, and Stapp went solo. But, the desire for CREED’s music lives on, and that was apparent with the band’s 2023 reunion, which marked their first live performances in over a decade. The band’s tours sold out: arenas, not small venues.

Across their four studio albums, CREED has a lot of hits, and they’ve compiled those into “The Best of Creed” in vinyl, CD and digital versions. The collection brings together smash singles such as “Higher”, “One Last Breath”, “With Arms Wide Open”, “My Sacrifice”, “My Own Prison”, “What’s This Life For” and more. All of the songs are newly mastered in 2025.

While the new mastering brings a slick, modern sound to these classics, which at this point are decades old, a great song transcends time, and the beauty in this collection is the songs’ raw power, whether they’re newly mastered or in their original form. Even a bad recording of a great song is better than the reverse, and these songs pull at the heart strings no matter what.

Highlights include opening track “Higher”, which sounds even bigger and more explosive than the original version, and “Torn”, whose thick guitars and drums especially benefit from the modern mastering. Another charming aspect of the collection is that lesser-known songs such as “My Sacrifice” and “What If” are included.

CREED are more than a band: they’re an institution and a snapshot of a period of music history. “The Best of Creed” celebrates that.