It was 1991. Hair metal and cheez-pop were still king and queen of the charts. But while it was nothing like the glossy pap it displaced, there was something strangely familiar about Nirvana's three minutes of disaffection. That something was Boston. Not the city, the band.
Theft is part of pop music.
In fact, it's most of it. The clever ones hide it better than the thick ones, but anyone who tells you they're an original is full of shit. Pop music is built on that which has come before it. Most artists go out of their way to credit their forebears, at least partially out of fear of being flayed for ripping them off. No doubt, the Orlando, Fla., foursome Creed have spent some time pondering that very question.