This Is War is the third studio album by American rock band 30 Seconds to Mars, released through Virgin Records and EMI on December 8, 2009. It peaked at #18 on the Billboard 200.

Background

30 Seconds to Mars were sued for breach-of-contract by their record label, Virgin Records, in mid-2008. The label sought $30 million in damages, claiming that the band had failed to produce three of the five records they were obligated to deliver under their 1999 contract with the now-defunct Immortal Records. In 2004, Virgin took over the contract. Leto responded to some of the claims in the suit on the band's website and was coerced into dismissing rumors that the group had disbanded. He said the claims were "ridiculously overblown" and "totally unrealistic", before stating "under California law, where we live and signed our deal, one cannot be bound to a contract for more than seven years." 30 Seconds to Mars had been contracted for nine years, so the band decided to exercise their "legal right to terminate our old, out-of-date contract, which, according to the law is null and void."

After nearly a year of the lawsuit battle, the band announced on April 29, 2009 that the case had been settled. The suit was resolved following a defence based on a contract case involving actress Olivia de Havilland decades before. Leto explained, "The California Appeals Court ruled that no service contract in California is valid after seven years, and it became known as the De Havilland Law after she used it to get out of her contract with Warner Bros." 30 Seconds to Mars then decided to re-sign with EMI (the parent label of Virgin). Leto said the band had "resolved our differences with EMI" and the decision had been made because of "the willingness and enthusiasm by EMI to address our major concerns and issues, (and) the opportunity to return to work with a team so committed and passionate about Thirty Seconds to Mars". He said it was "the most challenging business obstacle that we've ever gone through as a band."

Upon completion of the record, Leto spoke of the troubles the band faced whilst working on This Is War; "We spent two years of our lives working on that record, and it was us against the world... There were times that it was overwhelming. Everything that was going on was brutal... It was a case of survival, to tell the truth."

Writing and recording

The Summit

During recording sessions, the band hosted a gathering in they called "The Summit" at the Avalon club in Los Angeles. The purpose of this was so that fans could see how far into recording the band was, and maybe even participate in the recording. In an interview, frontman Jared Leto said this:

"The Summit was an experiment in our recording process, and we were just trying to think of ways that we could deepen the connection between ourselves and our family of fans around the world. We do that often, and think of ways to break the boundary. And we thought, 'How great would it be to invite the world to come and be a part of the next 30 Seconds to Mars album? There were some things that were left-field sound experiments — using the group, the collective, as a musical instrument. We did everything from percussive expression to whispering to things that were a little bit more familiar, like inviting the 1,000 people that were there to sing the chorus of a song. And those people who were a part of it all will be a part of the next 30 Seconds to Mars album. ... It was quite simply one of the best things we've done as a band."

Further on in this interview, Jared revealed that album's style will be leaning more towards that of their self-titled debut than that of A Beautiful Lie, saying that,

"The longest song on there is, like, eight minutes. The shortest, probably five. ... I don't think we have one under five. I think we do a really good job at just chasing the feeling, the core of the song, and allowing the song the ability or right to go where it leads us, where it wants to go. The song dictates that, and we've been working on this collection of songs for 12 months, so we know them pretty well."

Collaboration with Kanye West

During May, 2009, Kanye West posted a photo of himself, Brandon Flowers (the frontman of The Killers) and Jared Leto together and announced that he and Jared were working together on a song named "Hurricane". This collaboration was only included on an early version of "Hurricane", and West's work did not make it onto the album. Leto said that he,

"...had actually brought up some time ago, but it's pretty unbelievable that it actually happened. He came by here, he was here in the studio, and we did some initial kind of listening, and he did some singing, and we knew we needed to kind of follow up and finish things, so I went over to Hawaii an engineer and a small crew, and we had a great time."

West's vocal contribution to the song was ultimately removed because of legal issues surrounding the rights of each record company. Although it was not released on the original pressing of the album, Leto has said the track will be heard eventually. The early leaked versions of the album had the version of "Hurricane" featuring Kanye West included.

Promotion and release

Dragon Age: Origins

BioWare has announced that the soundtrack of Dragon Age: Origins contains the song "This Is War", the title track. The track made its world debut in the game before the release of the album. Steve Schnur, Worldwide Executive of Music and Music Marketing at Electronic Arts described working with 30 Seconds to Mars:

"EA has always had a forward-thinking relationship with 30 Seconds to Mars and we are overwhelmed with excitement about the band's involvement and creative contribution to Dragon Age: Origins. This exciting song debut exemplifies our continued commitment to working with great bands that move the needle to where music is going."

Jared Leto commented, "We always try to push the envelope both in the entertainment world and the media, and our title track to debut in a game of this caliber is one of the best ways to bring our music to fans around the world. We've come a long way from having to rely solely on radio to approach and engage music fans, and Dragon Age: Origins is the perfect game to do this with."

Faces of Mars

Faces of Mars.jpg200pxthumbrightSome covers of the Faces of Mars

This Is War features 2,000 different album covers featuring individual photos of fans from around the world. The band asked fans to submit pictures of themselves, and then selected the 2,000 best images. The images were then used as covers for the album itself and shipped randomly to stores around the world.

Cobra Starship frontman Gabe Saporta revealed to MTV News that he is featured on one of the covers, after sending in a photo and not expecting to be selected. Leto's mother also features on a cover. There is also a number of other notable persons including manager Irving Azoff and label executives Ron Werre, Greg Thompson, Angelica Cob-Baehler, Colin Finklestein and Bob Semanovich; as well as celebrities Bam Margera, Kat Von D, Conan O'Brien and members of the bands Chevelle and Street Drum Corps.

The CD booklet, as well as the promotional and digital artwork features a roaring tiger. All retail albums include varied sleeves, separate from the booklet, featuring one of the 2,000 different covers.

Musical style and themes

Allmusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine acknowledged the band's progression since their last record; saying that it was a liability "When they were mining a post-grunge or nu metal or emo vein," but now the group has deviated to a sound that is more reminiscent of "a hybrid of The Killers' retro new wave and My Chemical Romance's gothic prog." He said following the band's transposition "they've wound up with a sound that suits their stance", referring to the overall style of the record as a mixture of synth rock, metal, and progressive rock. Sara Anderson from AOL Radio referred to This Is Wars "extremely progressive rock sound with killer choruses"; saying the album clearly takes inspiration from experimental Pink Floyd to melodic M83. Billboard writer Cortney Harding said the album "represented an artistic step forward for the band," observing that the band hasn't completely abandoned its melodic and hard rock tendencies. The Times described the record's sound as "a tighter, more textured set of eyeliner indie-rock tunes than the group's previous albums".

30 Seconds to Mars frontman Jared Leto described the record as a concept album, proceeding to say "if this isn't, I'm not sure what is". He said the record was created in an "intense two-year period, where it felt like the whole world was falling apart and massive changes were going on. I think you can hear that in the sound of this album." Furthermore, he refused to call the album a rock opera, "People seem OK with calling it 'a rock opera'... I would never say that though; the only thing I'm comfortable saying 'rock opera' about is Tommy by The Who. But it's very conceptual, about many spiritual things, and it really is simply who we are, who we've become."

Leto described the style as "much more electronic and experimental, with lots of vintage synths." Also mentioning that he had written lyrics about some themes he felt were missing from their previous work, such as optimism and sexuality only for the song "Stranger in a Strange Land". Rock Sound writer Victoria Durham referred to the dramatic themes instilled in the album, such as "Night of the Hunter" which she said "is one of the album's most dramatic efforts" and also reminiscing over their previous album, A Beautiful Lie, which she says "featured its share of over-dramatic moments, (but) this time the band have blasted them into the stratosphere. The massive-sounding 'Vox Populi' is a prime example." She reiterates Leto's claim, noting the track has a "feeling of all-conquering optimism".

Reception

This Is War received mixed or average reviews from professional critics, with review aggregator Metacritic awarding the album a score of 54/100 from nine reviews.

Chart performance and sales

In the week of its release, This Is War sold over 67,000 units in the United States, entering the Billboard 200 at number 18. The album had debuted at number two on the Billboard Alternative Albums chart, number two on the Digital Albums chart, number four on the Rock Albums chart, and number 23 on the European Albums chart. On February 19, 2010, the album was certified Gold by the British Phonographic Industry for sales of 100,000 units.

The first single from the album, "Kings and Queens", debuted in its week of release at number 20 on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart and the number 24 on the Rock Songs chart. On the Alternative Songs chart, the song rose to the Top 5 only four weeks after its debut, peaking at number one and staying there for three weeks, ending Muse's song "Uprising"'s dominant run at the top of the chart. It is the second Alternative number one song from 30 Seconds to Mars, with the first being "From Yesterday", which managed two weeks at the top. Before its release as a single, in the week ending December 26, 2009, the song "This Is War" debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 72, number 67 on the Canadian Hot 100, number four on the Heatseekers Songs chart and number 33 on the Hot Digital Songs chart. The song was released as a single to American radio on March 8, 2010.

Singles chart positions

Accolades

Release history

Personnel

;30 Seconds to Mars

* Jared Leto — lead vocals, rhythm guitar, bass guitar

* Shannon Leto — drums, percussion

* Tomo Miličević — lead guitar, bass guitar, keyboards

;Production

* Flood — producer

* Steve Lillywhite — producer

References

Artist/Band Information

30 Seconds to Mars is an American rock band from Los Angeles, formed in 1998. Since 2007, the band has been composed of actor Jared Leto (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, songwriter), Shannon Leto (drums, percussion) and Tomo Miličević (lead guitar, keyboards). Following the departure of Matt Wachter (now of Angels & Airwaves) in 2007, Tim Kelleher became the bassist for the group, performing live only with both Jared and Miličević recording bass for studio recordings, while Braxton Olita (keyboards) was added to the touring lineup in 2009. Previously, the group also featured guitarists Solon Bixler (now of Great Northern) and Kevin Drake.

30 Seconds to Mars have released three studio albums – 30 Seconds to Mars (2002); A Beautiful Lie (2005); This Is War (2009) and two extended plays – AOL Sessions Undercover (2007) and To the Edge of the Earth (2008).

A Beautiful Lie earned the group a number of awards and nominations, winning three MTV Europe Music Awards and three Kerrang! Awards among others.

History

Formation

Founded in 1998 by Jared Leto's brother Shannon Leto, 30 Seconds to Mars began as a small family project. Matt Wachter later joined the band as bassist and keyboard player. After working with a number of guitarists (as the band's first two guitarists, Kevin Drake and Solon Bixler, left the band due to issues primarily related to touring), the three auditioned Tomo Miličević to round out the band's roster.

According to an interview from Virgin Records, " actually comes

from a thesis that the band found online that was written by a former Harvard professor. And one of the subsections of the

thesis was titled 'thirty seconds to mars' and he goes on to talk about the exponential growth of technology that relates to humans and saying that we are quite literally thirty seconds to mars. What it means to us is, we thought it best described our music, in short."

Even though Jared Leto is a Hollywood actor, he prefers not to use this position to promote the band; in fact, he refuses to play at venues if they have used his name to promote the band.

Self-titled debut album (2002—2005)

The band's debut self-titled album, produced by Bob Ezrin was released in 2002 to mixed reviews. The album produced two singles, "Capricorn (A Brand New Name)" and "Edge of the Earth". The former peaked at #31 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart.

A Beautiful Lie (2005—2008)

Their second album, A Beautiful Lie, was released on August 30, 2005. Because the album was leaked five months before its release, the band decided to include two bonus tracks: "Battle of One" (an original song that was also set to be the album's title track when it was first announced) and "Hunter" (a cover of the Björk song). To further promote the album, the band also enclosed "golden tickets" in 12 copies, which granted their owners access to any 30 Seconds to Mars concert free of charge, along with backstage access.

On August 31, 2006, the band won the MTV2 Award for "The Kill" at the MTV Video Music Awards, one of their two nominations. The second nomination was for Best Rock Video; however, they lost to AFI's "Miss Murder". In the video, members of the band reenact scenes from The Shining. A Beautiful Lie was certified platinum by the RIAA in January for distribution of over one million albums.

In 2006, while on the MTVu $2 Bill Tour, the band did a signing with Music Saves Lives, drawing people to the importance of the non-profit.

In October, the band began their "Welcome to the Universe" tour, sponsored by MTV2 and were supported by Head Automatica, The Receiving End of Sirens, Cobra Starship, Rock Kills Kid, and several other bands including Street Drum Corps. The tour was "environmentally sound" according to a 2006 interview with then-bassist Matt Wachter. "Jared and Shannon put together this thing called Environmentour which is illustrating ways—alternatives—to kind of clean up some of the mess we leave behind. We fueled the bus with vegetable oil," he explains. On November 20, MTV2 premiered the video for "From Yesterday"; the video is the first American rock video ever shot in its entirety in the People's Republic of China. The music video is loosely based on the film The Last Emperor.

On April 29, 2007, the band performed at the Australian MTV Australia Video Music Awards, where they were nominated for three awards, winning "Best Rock Video" and "Video of the Year" for "The Kill".

As of Spring 2007, the band is supporting The Used as a part of the "Taste of Chaos" tour and have scheduled a string of dates in Europe supporting Linkin Park. They are also scheduled to play Roskilde, Rock am Ring, Pinkpop, Give It A Name Festival and Download. 30 Seconds to Mars were one of the hosts for the MTV Europe Music Awards 2008. While on the 2007 Taste of Chaos the band also did and interview with Music Saves Lives.

On March 21, 2008, 30 Seconds to Mars performed at 'My Coke Fest' in South Africa, which saw the band back on South African soil since the inception and recording of A Beautiful Lie. At a Press Conference Leto describe the experience as deeply personal, with the added hope that some new material may see the light of day on African Soil. The band played to a sold-out crowd in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

On December 11, 2009, according to AOL Radio Blog, with votes from listeners of the site's Alternative Radio station, the Top Alternative Song of the Decade of the 2000s was 30 Seconds To Mars' hit The Kill from 2006, which had major success, along with the album which the single appears, A Beautiful Lie.

Virgin Records lawsuit and This Is War (2008—present)

In August 2008, Virgin Records filed a $30 million lawsuit, claiming the band refused to deliver three albums as required by its contract. According to the lawsuit, the band "repudiated" a 1999 contract in July. In an early 2009 interview with MTV, Jared said that they hope to have their third album out by summer 2009, and he also gave information about the meaning behind the record saying, "I think this record is about faith, about spiritual matters, and that just happens to be what we're thinking about and talking about in our lives right now. I said when the last album came out that I wanted to destroy the first record, which I think we did. We took a dramatic turn from the first to the second, and I think this new record follows that path. It's exciting to us, and we're really passionate about it."

In the February 11 issue of Kerrang! magazine, the working title for the new album was said to be This Is War.

Jared released a small amount of information about his trip to Hawaii, and recorded a song called "Hurricane" with Kanye West.

On April 28, they returned from EMI and the lawsuit was annulled.

Soon after the announcement of the lawsuit settlement, Jared and 30 Seconds To Mars told MTV News that their third album had had its release date pushed back from April 2009 to some time in September 2009. Although the released dates were changed many times, 30 Seconds to Mars released This Is War on December 8, 2009.

Awards

On August 8, 2007, Kerrang! announced that 30 Seconds to Mars has been nominated for two categories of the Kerrang! Awards 2007; "Best International Newcomer" and "Best Single" – "The Kill". On August 24 they had only won the award for Best Single, which was "The Kill". The other award was lost to Madina Lake.

On November 1, 2007, the band won the MTV Europe Music Award for "Rock Out", one of the two categories they were nominated in.

On December 21, 2007, 30 Seconds to Mars won Fuse's Best of 2007 Award. They won in competition against Korn and had amassed over 7 million votes. 31 other bands and artists such as Muse, Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance and Avenged Sevenfold were also included in the contest.

On August 2, 2008, 30 Seconds to Mars won the "Video Star" awards for "A Beautiful Lie" music video at MTV Asia Awards 2008, in Genting, Malaysia.

On August 21, 2008, 30 Seconds To Mars won two of the four Kerrang! Awards that they were nominated for. The band won "Best International Band" and "Best Single — From Yesterday".

On October 16, 2008 they won "Best International Rock Artist" at the Los Premios MTV Latinoamérica 2008.

On November 6, 2008, they were the VIP section hosts of the MTV Europe Music Awards, interviewing the likes of Kid Rock, Anastacia and Sugababes. They added to their collection with an MTV EMA "Video Star" for "A Beautiful Lie" and the "Rock Out" award, claiming that nearly all of their success is down to their fans.

The "A Beautiful Lie" video was certified gold by MTV International.

Characteristics

Logo

The band's phoenix logo (which the band named "Mithra") bears the phrase "Provehito in Altum", the band's motto. Roughly translated from Latin, this means "Launch forth into the deep"; but a more stylized version would be "Rocket in(to) High(ness)". The logo was primarily used for promotion of the band's debut, whereas for A Beautiful Lie, the new Trinity logo was created consisting of three skulls and three arrows pointing inwards, along with the band's name and motto.

The Echelon

The Echelon is a publicity street team for the band 30 Seconds to Mars, which helps in bringing friends to the shows, phoning local radio stations to request the band's songs, putting up posters, posting to band forums or related bulletin boards online, voting for the band in official award nominations and maintaining magazines or websites dedicated to the band. It is also the name of one of their songs in their debut album 30 Seconds to Mars.

Musical style, genre and influence

30 Seconds to Mars have been stated by reviewers and criticts to play within the genres of hard rock, emo, Allmusic. neo-progressive, progressive metal, alternative metal and post-grunge.

Band members

;Current members

* Jared Leto – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (1998–present)

* Shannon Leto – drums, percussion (1998–present)

* Tomo Miličević – lead guitar, violin, keyboards (2003–present)

;Former members

* Matt Wachter – bass guitar, keyboards, synthesizer (2001–2007)

* Solon Bixler – guitar (2000–2003)

* Kevin Drake – guitar (1999–2001)

;Touring members

* Tim Kelleher – bass guitar, keyboards (2007–present)

* Braxton Olita – keyboards (2009–present)

Timeline

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Discography

;Studio albums

* 30 Seconds to Mars (2002)

* A Beautiful Lie (2005)

* This Is War (2009)

Acoustic songs

The band made acoustic versions of songs from their second album A Beautiful Lie. Some of the acoustics have been included in some versions of the album.

* Jared Leto – vocals, acoustic guitar, acoustic bass

* Tomo Miličević – acoustic guitar, violin

Non-album tracks

In addition to the tracks on their three full-length releases thus far, the band has also recorded a few other tracks. Among these tracks are "Phase 1: Fortification" and "Valhalla", the latter of which was present on an early demo. "Phase 1: Fortification" was released on an overseas single for "Capricorn (A Brand New Name)". Another track featured on certain imported 30 Seconds to Mars titles is "Anarchy in Tokyo", a song that was recorded during the process of their self-titled debut. "Revolution" was also recorded for the self-titled album, but wasn't included because it didn't fit the theme of the album, and because of fear that listeners would take the lyrics too literally, especially after the September 11, 2001 attacks. "Occam's Razor" was also recorded, but was never included on any of the band's releases. As a result, it is considered the most difficult to locate of the five unreleased tracks.

Demo versions of songs on the band's self-titled debut were also slightly different, along with different names. For example, "Fallen" was previously called "Jupiter", and "Year Zero" was previously called "Hero". Also made available are the demo versions of "Buddha for Mary" and "93 Million Miles"; the latter originally had lyrics referring to the band Deadsy, whose members Dr. Nner and P. Exeter Blue I provided extra instrumentation on several tracks, but the lyrics were changed after the two bands were involved in a small feud.

During live shows, the band premiered two new songs, one of which was rumored to end up on the new album: "Some Other Sun". "The Believer" was initially written for the self-titled album but was scrapped during recording. There was also live songs such as "Sisters of Heresy" and "Under Pressure / Pressure" (Name of song unsure, name based on lyrics). A recent live song, "Revenge", was written for "This Is War" but was scrapped.

On December 11, 2006, the band sent their fans a "stocking stuffer" in the form of a holiday song called "Santa Through the Back Door". It was featured on a KROQ (Los Angeles) compilation which coincided with the station's annual Almost Acoustic Christmas festival. The song also featured a spoken word intro performed by the band's roadie Mike "Colonel Buck" Bobroff who also performed the intro prior to the band's set at the festival on December 9, 2006.

In September 2007, the band also recorded a cover of Kanye West's "Stronger" for BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge.

In February 2008, the band had premiered a song during the first European blood ball in Milan, Italy. Leto said the song is called "Old Blues Song". Later, he revealed the actual title: "Guillotine".

During the sessions of This Is War, "Hurricane" was originally recorded with Kanye West on background vocals. The song was later re-recorded without him because conflicts between West's label and the band's label would not let him add his vocals. The Kanye West version of "Hurricane" was leaked online, with Jared Leto saying the song may be released.

On March 29, 2010, the band returned to BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge where they recorded a cover of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance".http

Videography

*A Beautiful Lie - Deluxe Edition (2006) – (DVD-Audio)

*To the Edge of the Earth (2008) – (Limited Release)

References

Literature

* AA.VV. Thirty Seconds to Mars. A Beautiful Lie. Milwaukee (United States), Hal Leonard Corporation, Guitar Recorded Versions, 2005. ISBN 1423426797.

* AA.VV. Thirty Seconds to Mars. A Beautiful Lie — Deluxe Edition. Milwaukee (United States), Hal Leonard Corporation, Guitar Recorded Versions, 2007. ISBN 9781423426790.