Greatest Hits by Alien Ant Farm

Alien Ant Farm called their 1999 debut Greatest Hits, and the joke was the whole point: no compilation here, just a Riverside, California band with no hits to its name yet, putting out its first album on its own label, Chick Music Records. The sessions had a whiff of the heist about them, too, with the band slipping into a local studio overnight and working straight through until morning.

What came out is scrappy, hungry alt-rock from a band that already owned its local scene: Dryden Mitchell out front, Terry Corso on guitar, Tye Zamora on bass and Mike Cosgrove on drums. An early take on "Movies" lives here, and most of these songs got a second life on ANThology and TruANT once the bigger labels came calling. First, though, it was named best independent album at the LA Music Awards that year, and in 2000 their pals in Papa Roach made Alien Ant Farm the first signing to their New Noize label.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.