They're one of my favorite bands. They're also the only band I can say I've been listening to since before their debut album came out. But I don't talk about it.
In my top 10 favorite bands, first 8 songs on This is War is some of the best music I have ever heard. Oh and A Beautiful Lie is one of my favorite rock albums of all time! I love them! for the third album, for me personally I love/like the first 8 songs but then the last 4 songs I don't and the album falls off and they were pretty popular because of ABL already
I really enjoyed their first album and the third was decent, but I didn't care for their second album for the most part. Couldn't even pin-point why exactly, but something about that album was meh to me.
A Beautiful Lie was my favourite album of theirs. Very mainstream, but there's a lot of awesome up-tempo tracks on that record. Great for running. ABL > Self-titled (slightly) > TIW (tried too hard to be epic/artsy)
1. 30 Seconds to Mars — Their self-titled album is absolutely flawless. The songwriting's amazing, the guitars are heavy, the electronic elements are masterful, and the lyrics are very, very good and very, very cryptic. I've listened to this album once a week since the summer of 2002 and I never get tired of it. It's one of my favorite albums of all-time. "Fallen" and "Oblivion" are the best songs, although I love all of them pretty equally. 2. This Is War — Their second-best album. I love the epic-ness of the record and the songwriting. The lyrics are outstanding, going back to the cryptic nature of their self-titled album. It feels like they were trying to do what Linkin Park did with A Thousand Suns but actually succeeded. I love it. "Hurricane" is the standout track, with or without Kanye West, although I prefer it with Kanye, in all honesty. 3. A Beautiful Lie — Their worst album, although I still love it to pieces. It's way too mainstream for me (I don't think This Is War is very mainstream), although it's got some awesome songs. "The Kill (Bury Me)" and "From Yesterday" (written about Alexander the Great and specifically based on Jared Leto's acting in Alexander) are the best songs on the album and two of the best songs they've ever written.
I got into "A Beautiful Lie" and the self-titled debut album at around the same time in 2006. I listened to "Echelon" and "The Kill" alongside each other and I decided that the songs on the first album (and its B-sides) were substantially better than those of its predecessor. In my opinion, the only problem with it is that, even as a concept album, the lyrical ideas and themes kind of get stale after so many songs. A friend of mine said "it's like Jared wrote one song and based all the other songs off it." ;P "A Beautiful Lie" has its merits with songs like "Savior" and the B-side "Battle Of One" and the singles were accompanied by spectacular videos. Though I prefer the first album as I've said, I'm certainly glad they didn't just make a clone of their self-titled and that they decided to explore a variety of new lyrical themes instead. I listened to a fair few songs off "This Is War" and my problem with those songs was that it felt like they tried to shoehorn crowd vocals into everything so that kind of turned me off checking out any more of that album. :/ They've actually opened for Linkin Park before.
Yeah.. I was so pissed when I realized 30 STM were opening for LP in 2007 in Stockholm. Meaning I missed two of my favorite bands perform at the same concert <.<
This is my main gripe concerning This Is War. I mean, I understand what they were trying to do and respect how much they appreciate their fans, but too much is too much. I'd say the self-titled and ABL are tied, with This Is War behind'em.
I listened to This Is War for the first time ever today. I have to say that it's a lot better than I expected, but I don't really find it as good as A Beautiful Lie or their self titled record.
Love their first album and their most recent album. A Beautiful Lie is a massive "meh" -- easily their worst album in my eyes. Massive emo-fest that tried to latch on to what was popular at the time (which worked, but didn't make it any better).