A Beautiful Lie

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A Beautiful Lie is the second album written and performed by the alternative rock band 30 Seconds to Mars. It was released on August 16, 2005 under Virgin Records. The album was produced by Josh Abraham and 30 Seconds to Mars.

The album produced two singles, "Attack" and "The Kill"; both songs managed to chart within the top thirty on the US Modern Rock chart, with "The Kill" managing to hit the top ten (a first for the band). It has also went Gold, shipping over 500,000 copies.

A Beautiful Lie is different from the band's debut album 30 Seconds to Mars both musically and lyrically. Whereas the eponymously-titled debut album's lyrics focused on human struggle<ref name="shoutweb">Redmon, Jess (May 2002). 30 Seconds to Mars: Welcome to their universe. Shoutweb.com: On the Record. Retrieved on 2006-04-06.</ref> and the music was heavily atmospheric, the lyrics of A Beautiful Lie are "personal and less cerebral" and the music takes on a more alternative rock approach.

A Beautiful Lie was recorded on four different continents in five different countries over a three-year period to accommodate vocalist/guitarist Jared Leto's acting career. The album's title track, as well as three other songs, were composed in Cape Town, South Africa, where Leto was later met by his bandmates to work on the tracks. It was during this time that Leto conceived the album's title.<ref name="bio">This information was taken from 30 Seconds to Mars' biography on their official Web site: thirtysecondstomars.com.</ref> (Prior to this, the album was tentatively to be released under the title The Battle of One.)

The album was leaked onto peer-to-peer filesharing networks almost five months before its scheduled release; however, the version of the album that leaked happened to be unmastered. Because of this, the band was forced to set the release date of the album back.

To promote A Beautiful Lie, 30 Seconds to Mars included the songs "The Battle of One" and "Hunter" (originally performed by Björk) as bonus tracks. To further promote the album, the band included "golden passes" with three of the special versions of the album (the jewel case was wrapped in a plastic cover featuring alternate artwork) that entitled the buyer free entrance and backstage access to any 30 Seconds to Mars show for life.

The album was re-released on November 21, 2006 with one extra bonus track and behind the scenes footage including the making of the "The Kill" video and MTV2 moments involving the band.

[edit] Track listing

All tracks by Jared Leto unless otherwise noted.

1. "Attack" – 3:09
2. "A Beautiful Lie" – 4:05
3. "The Kill" – 3:51
4. "Was It A Dream?" – 4:15
5. "The Fantasy" – 4:29
6. "Savior" (30 Seconds to Mars) – 3:24
7. "From Yesterday" (30 Seconds to Mars) – 4:08
8. "The Story" – 3:55
9. "R-Evolve" – 3:59
10. "A Modern Myth" – 14:14

• Song ends at 2:57 and a hidden song begins at 12:26 - "Praying for a Riot" - 1:48

Bonus tracks:

• "Battle Of One" (30 Seconds to Mars) – 2:47
• "Hunter" (Björk Cover) – 3:54
• "The Kill" (Rebirth) (available on the Special Edition)

[edit] DVD Tracklisting (Special Edition)

1. The Kill
2. The Making of The Kill
3. The International Music Feed Interview
4. Attack (MTV2's All That Rocks)
5. The Kill (MTV2's All That Rocks)
6. The Fantasy (Fan-generated take)(MTV2's All That Rocks)
7. MTV2's T-Minus Rock Interview
8. Red Carpet Arrival (MTV Video Music Awards)
9. MTV2 Award Acceptance Speech (MTV Video Music Awards)
10. MTV2 $2Bill Internet Promo
11. MTV2 $2Bill Pre-Sale Tour Promo
12. MTV2 $2Bill Ticket Sale Tour Promo

[edit] Performance line-up

Jared Leto — vocalist, guitarist

Shannon Leto — drummer

Tomo Milicevic — guitarist

Matt Wachter — bassist

[edit] Charting Positions

[edit] Album

[edit] Singles

[edit] Album personnel

• All songs written by Jared Leto, performed by 30 Seconds to Mars
• "The Battle of One," "From Yesterday" and "Savior" written and performed by 30 Seconds to Mars
• "Hunter" written by Björk, performed by 30 Seconds to Mars
• Produced by Josh Abraham and 30 Seconds to Mars
• Engineered and mixed by Ryan Williams
• Assistant engineer: Brandon Belsky
• Additional engineering by Brian Virtue
• "Attack" mixed by Tom Lord-Alge, assisted by Femio Hernandez
• Mixed at Pulse Recording (Los Angeles, California)
• "Attack" mixed at South Beach Studios (Miami Beach, Florida)
• "The Battle of One" and "Hunter" produced by 30 Seconds to Mars and Brian Virtue; engineered by Brian Virtue at CRC Studios (Chicago, Illinois)
• Mastered by Brian Gardner at Bernie Grundam Mastering (Hollywood, California)
• A&R: John Deutsch
• Piano on "The Kill" by Matt Serletic
• Additional synthesizer on "Attack," "From Yesterday" and "Savior" by Oliver Goldstein
• String players on "A Modern Myth": Steve Dress (double bass); Caroline Campbell (violin); Neel Hammond (violin); Miguel Atwood-Ferguson (viola); Vanessa Freebairn-Smith (cello)
• Wataru Hokoyama: string arranger
• Management: The Firm
• Legal: Gary Stiffelman for Ziffren, Brittenham, Branca & Fischer
• Business management: Dian Vaughn for Loring Ward
• US booking: John Marx, John Branigan for William Morris
• UK booking: Rod Macsween for International Talent Booking
• Creative direction and design: 30 Seconds to Mars and Sean Mosher-Smith
• Photograph: Olaf Heine

[edit] Miscellaneous

• When "The Kill" was announced as a single, 30 Seconds to Mars rendered the song title as "The Kill (Bury Me)." The correct title of the song is simply "The Kill."
• When the press release info for The Kill video was released, Jared Leto stated that the video was directed by a Norwegian named Bartholomew Cubbins. This was intended as a joke as Cubbins is the main character of the Dr. Seuss book The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, however airings of the video on music channels still list Cubbins as the director (Jared himself is the actual director of the video) and the gag remains a running joke on the band's message boards. The band also did this for the video for "From Yesterday".
• The band wrote nearly forty songs for the album and had a difficult time choosing the songs that would appear on the album. At one point or another the songs "Attack", "The Kill", "From Yesterday", and "The Story" were among those cut from the album. In the case of "Attack", the band had thrown the song out many times before, as they were unable to make the song work with the full band. However, during the recording of the album, Jared had played the song acoustically for producer Josh Abraham, jokingly calling it a hit single. After hearing it, Abraham insisted it go on the album, saying it actually would be a hit single. While statistics show that it wasn't the hit single, it still made an appearance on the Billboard Modern and Mainstream rock charts.

[edit] References

<references />it:A Beautiful Lie