Instagram has responded to claims that the platform is over-suggesting Creed’s song “Higher” to its users, in comments shared via CNN. Many users reported receiving the same Creed track repeatedly in their recommendations.
An Instagram spokesperson addressed the issue after users complained about the song appearing in their suggestions far more often than expected. The company said it had found a problem with how the track was being distributed across the platform.
“That song, ‘Higher,’ is always recommended to me too!! We looked into this and found that this song is being recommended to more people than intended,” the Instagram spokesperson said. “We’re continuing to investigate.”
The spokesperson also clarified that a separate issue involving a Soulja Boy song was not related to the Creed problem. “The Soulja Boy song being recommended is not a bug, and it is actually popular on IG!”
The comments came as Instagram investigated the unusual pattern of recommendations that many users had noticed on the social media platform.
“Higher” was released on August 31, 1999, as the lead single from Creed’s second album, Human Clay. The song became the band’s first track to reach the top 10 on the US Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number seven in July 2000. It spent 57 weeks on the chart, longer than any other Creed song on the Hot 100. The single also topped both the Modern Rock Tracks and Mainstream Rock Tracks charts.
The success of “Higher” helped Human Clay reach the top of the US Billboard 200 Album Charts and remain there for two weeks in October 1999. The album went on to achieve 11x platinum status in the US, with over 11 million copies sold. In 2024, the song gained new attention when the Texas Rangers made it their unofficial anthem during their first World Series win. The track also appeared in a Paramount+ Super Bowl commercial and was used in a NASCAR Daytona 500 campaign.
Users began noticing the song appearing in their suggestions over several months in 2026, regardless of their posting activity or music preferences on the platform. Posts on social media in August and September of 2026 questioned whether Creed had paid Meta, Instagram’s parent company, for special placement. Music recommendations on Instagram draw from several factors, including users’ previous song choices and details from photos or videos they upload.
Instagram’s engineering team is working to fix the issue, though the company has not explained what caused the song to appear so frequently in recommendations. The glitch affected users across the platform who were seeing “Higher” suggested to them more often than intended.
