Instagram has apologised after its recommendation system repeatedly suggested Creed’s 1999 single Higher to far more users than it should have. The company says it does not yet know why the glitch happened. Engineers are working on a fix, and a spokesperson said Instagram was “continuing to investigate”. The admission is an unusual acknowledgement from a major platform that its music suggestions had gone wrong.
Users began noticing in recent weeks that Higher kept appearing among the tracks offered as background music when they made Instagram Stories. A CNN report on 8 October confirmed the song was being pushed regardless of whether it suited what people were posting. Instagram told CNN it had looked into the issue and found the track was reaching more people than intended. For many users, the song appeared repeatedly regardless of the photo or video they were sharing.
Music suggestions on the platform are normally based on the content a user uploads and the songs they have chosen in the past, and the Creed recommendations did not fit that pattern. The company also addressed a second frequently suggested track, Soulja Boy’s Turn My Swag On. It said that case was not a fault and simply reflected the song’s popularity on the app. The company did not say how many users had been affected or how long the problem had been running.
Frustrated users posted about the problem on X across August, September and October. Some suggested Creed or its label had a paid promotional arrangement with Meta, Instagram’s parent company, though no evidence for that has been offered. For the band, the episode has kept a song more than a quarter of a century old in front of a large online audience.
Higher was the lead single from Human Clay, Creed’s second studio album, and became the band’s first Top 10 hit. It has since become a karaoke favourite and found younger fans after going viral online. Creed reunited in 2024 for a tour after more than a decade on hiatus, and singer Scott Stapp said in January 2025 that he hoped the band would write new songs. Their most recent album, Full Circle, was released in 2009. Guitarist Mark Tremonti, who also plays in Alter Bridge, has spoken about the band’s mixed reputation, saying he would rather sell records and draw criticism.
