Anytime I bring up 30 Seconds to Mars, I always get the requisite commenter bashing them on the grounds of lead singer Jared Leto’s previously established fame. Maybe I’m just naive and too forgiving, but I see no problem with an actor who forms a band to make music. Look, actors are artists. They just use a different medium and different tools to make their creations. I see no reason why an actor can’t branch out to try to explore a new form of creativity. And regarding this notion that Leto used his fame to get a record deal, fame in all forms generally comes about because of who you know. Every hit band today is in their position because they knew someone with enough influence to get them the resources to achieve fame. Leto used his network of people to do it quicker. Jared Leto the actor and Jared Leto, lead singer for 30 Seconds to Mars are mutually exclusive entities.
Phew. Ok, end rant.
30 Seconds to Mars is a strange album in a number of ways. Both sonically and thematically it seems like the band tried to create music that directly tied into the band’s name. As a result this record is a spacey, ambitious record filled with atmospheric and galactic metaphors that seem to be the driving force behind the record, instead of the emotions and feelings those metaphors are meant to convey. By Leto’s own admission, 30 Seconds to Mars ended up being a red herring in terms of what the band wanted to be (he said that while working on the band’s massively successful follow-up, A Beautiful Lie). This doesn’t mean that the music that the band makes on their debut isn’t a fascinating listen. Shannon Leto’s (yes, it’s Jared’s brother) drums pound and bite with every beat. Tomo Miličević’s guitars are abstract and decidedly unusual, which on this record mean their doing exactly what the band is intending. Lastly, Jared Leto is a pretty good singer, certainly at least as good as his hard rock peers. While 30 Seconds to Mars is far from a benchmark album in any respect, it still stands out as being a unique concept in its own right, deserving credit for departing from the rock-by-numbers sound that is so constantly bashed in this decade.
30 Seconds to Mars – Edge of the Earth [iTunes] (YSI)
==TJ==
Filed under: Album A Day | Tagged: 30 Seconds To Mars, Album A Day
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