Full disclosure: I'm not a music snob and I don't know any. I know a few other rock fans.

I thought the first Creed album was really good. I thought everything else they did was insipid. On top of that, the megalomania that was fully unleashed in the subsequent albums made it impossible to ignore in its infancy in the first. Now, that I can turn on the radio without hearing their music, I can enjoy the songs off of the first album again (everything more recent still sucks).

The rock fans I knew at the time all this was happening liked the first album and hated everything else, while the rest of the world seemed to be buying those albums in bulk.