Alien Ant Farm

[Dagger Dias]

Alien Ant Farm are best known for their version of the song Smooth Criminal.

They took Michael Jackson's version (shown below)

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and turned it into THIS

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I love both versions of the song. Now, with that being said.... Alien Ant Farm are basically known for a cover. None of their singles have been all that great. Their Anthology album did alright, due to Smooth Criminal being on it. They did not want to be known for a cover so they released two albums afterward, Truant and Up in the Attic. Neither one of them did very well. They made an appearance on the Spiderman soundtrack in a track called Bug Bytes, one of their better songs but still not much to write home about. So they ended up being known as a one hit wonder with a cover song, which is unfortunate.


Do you think they would have been more successful if they tried covering more songs? Why or why not?

I think that a second cover could have helped them because the exposure they got from their Smooth Criminal cover was a huge help for them. They never matched Smooth Criminal in their original work, but they are not the only band with that issue. Quiet Riot's biggest hit, Come On Feel the Noise was also a cover, from a forgotten 70's group named Slade. Another hit of theirs, Mama Weer All Crayzee Now, was also a Slade cover. Alien Ant Farm could have taken a similar route and tried covering another Jackson song. If Smooth Criminal was so good then Beat It could have been epic in cover form. If Alien Ant Farm had done a cover on their 2nd album I think that would have gotten them more exposure and their original work would have received more attention. Besides, being a good cover band is better than being a bad original band in my opinion.

What do the rest of you think?

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

Alien Ant Farm was the first concert I ever went to, back when they had just released the ANThology album. I had already bought "Movies" when it was first released on single (it was re-released and was a top-10 hit in the UK after the huge success of Smooth Criminal).

I still play some of their songs occasionally, just this week "Wish" (which was also on the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 soundtrack) and "Courage" have been played on my i-pod. There really are a few decent tracks on ANThology. I prefer both of those, and "Movies" to "Smooth Criminal". Initially being a young rock fan, I liked AAF's version of SC better than Jacko's, but now there really is no comparison...Jackson's is far better.

It was a shame AAF faded away after their initial debut album. I remember they released a single off their next album with a yellow cover, I forget what it was called though. It was pretty average, and yes, their song off the Spiderman soundtrack was ok, but nothing compared to their best songs on ANThology.

I don't see why they would want to cover another song in order to have another big hit. Yes, it would have made them more famous again but they would have begun to have been seen as a joke, who can only have a hit off the back of someone else's music. They would struggle to have been taken seriously if that is the route they took. However, looking at their total lack of success since ANThology, maybe that would be something they would be willing to do, at least initally, in order to get back into the public eye a bit.

 

[JWGunslinger]

I love both versions of this song, I think that Alien Ant Farm did a great cover with Smooth Criminal and they really made it their own. However I never really got into their songs that they wrote, I don't know why because I've listened to plenty and I didn't dislike them I just didn't get hooked.

I think a good move for them would have been to come out with more covers like they did with Smooth Criminal, maybe do one or two albums of just covers and then come out with one of their own music that people would be pumped to get. It may not have worked but I think it would have been a good way for them to build off the success of the SC cover while it was still hot. It's probably too late to do it now but I think that they could find more success if they could take a song and make it their own like they did with that one.