A Beautiful Lie

Untitled

A Beautiful Lie is the second album written and performed by 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 has so far produced four singles, "Attack", "The Kill", "From Yesterday", and "A Beautiful Lie"; three of the four songs managed to chart within the top thirty on the U.S. Modern Rock chart, with "The Kill" and "From Yesterday" both entering the top ten. It has also gone Platinum, shipping over 1 million 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 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.

History

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. 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 file sharing 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 that entitled the buyer free entrance and backstage access to any 30 Seconds to Mars show for life. Unfortunately, the label was not happy with this and forced the band to limit the pass users to one (1) show and free merchandise.

Deluxe Edition

The album was re-released with new artwork as "A Beautiful Lie - Deluxe Edition" on November 21, 2006. The set contained one bonus track - a re-recording of the "The Kill", entitled "The Kill (Rebirth)". Also included was a DVD featuring the VMA-nominated video for "The Kill", making of "The Kill" video, live performances and MTV2 moments involving the band.

Before production of the Deluxe Edition, the band requested that the members of the "Echelon" send in their names so that they could be thanked for their support over the years. As a result, the inside cover(s) of the Deluxe Edition contain a huge list of printed fan names. In addition to this, the front cover contains a holographic image consisting of the Mithra (Phoenix) and the Trinity (Skulls).

2007 re-release

The album was re-released yet again in 2007, following extensive touring throughout Europe, in an attempt to expose themselves to a larger audience. This re-release is essentially the same as the original release, just with different artwork. The re-release does not contain the new version of The Kill, nor does it contain a bonus DVD. The album was re-released in Ireland again in November, 2007. This version contains the new version of The Kill and a second bonus track, an acoustic version of "A Beautiful Lie" recorded live on a radio session.

Track listing

#	Title	Length
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"	3:24
7.	"From Yesterday"	4:08
8.	"The Story"	3:55
9.	"R-Evolve"	3:59
10.	"A Modern Myth", containing a hidden track called "Praying for a Riot" (beginning at 12:30)	14:14
11.	"Battle of One" (Hidden track)	2:47
12.	"Hunter" [Björk cover] (Hidden track)	3:54

Bonus tracks:

#	Title
13.	"The Kill (Rebirth)" (Deluxe edition bonus track)
13.	"Attack" (Live) (Wal-Mart bonus track)
13.	"Was It a Dream?" (Acoustic) (Japan bonus track)
14.	"A Beautiful Lie" (Acoustic) (Irish bonus track)
14.	"Praying For A Riot"

• DVD track listing

#	Title
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

Charts

Album

Year	Country	Chart	Peak position	Certification	Sales
2006	U.S.	Billboard 200	#36	Platinum	1,024,902
2007	Australia	ARIA Album Chart	#20	Gold	35,000
2007	Canada	CRIA Album Chart	—	Gold	50,000
2007	UK	UK Albums Chart	#39	—	—
2007	New Zealand	RIANZ Albums Chart	#20	—	—
2007	Finland	Finnish Albums Chart	#15	—	—
2007	Italy	Italian Albums Chart	#11	Gold	70,000

Singles

Year	Single	Chart	Position
2005	"Attack"	Modern Rock Tracks	#22
2005	"Attack"	Mainstream Rock Tracks	#38
2006	"The Kill"	Billboard Hot 100	#65
2006	"The Kill"	Modern Rock Tracks	#3
2006	"The Kill"	Mainstream Rock Tracks	#14
2006	"From Yesterday"	Modern Rock Tracks	#1
2006	"From Yesterday"	Mainstream Rock Tracks	#11
2006	"From Yesterday"	Billboard Hot 100	#76
2007	"A Beautiful Lie"	Modern Rock Tracks	#37

Album personnel

• All the songs are written by Jared Leto, except "The Battle of One", "From Yesterday" and "Savior" which are written by the whole of 30 Seconds to Mars
• All songs are performed solely by 30 Seconds to Mars
• "Hunter" was originally written and performed by Björk and was remade by 30 Seconds to Mars on the deluxe album.
• 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, Los Angeles, 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: Irving Azoff Management
• Legal: Gary Stiffelman for Ziffren, Brittenham, Branca & Fischer
• Business management: Dian Vaughn for Loring Ward
• U.S. booking: John Marx, John Branigan for William Morris
• International booking: Mike Greek for Creative Artists Agency UK Ltd
• Creative direction and design: 30 Seconds to Mars and Sean Mosher-Smith
• Photograph: Olaf Heine

In pop culture

"The Kill" was featured in the January 21, 2007 Without a Trace episode, "Primed".

Trivia

• The Battle of One is featured in the tracklisting in Madden 07.
• 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 Danish albino 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 Fantasy"'s lyrics include a nod to Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Just Like Heaven" by The Cure.
• At the last page of the album information booklet, Jared thanks 3 unknown people by the abbreviations of C.D., S.J, and A.O. Jared may have thanked Cameron Diaz (C.D.), Scarlet Johansson (S.J.), and Ashley Olsen (A.O.), who were all of his ex-girlfriends.
• 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.
• The video of "The Kill" is based upon the film The Shining and the video has several subliminal messages, most notably at 2:58, 3:51, and 3:58.
• On a Barnes & Noble music section (along with others), an mp3 sample of "The Kill (Rebirth)" contains a "scary speak" which does not belong to the song. In fact, it is the end of the track "Hunter".
• In Indonesian, "Dekil" (read: "The Kill") means 'dirty'.
• On the UK release of the Album 'Provehito in Altum' is printed both on tback of the case and the CD itself. It means 'Launch forth into the deep' and is the motto of the Memorial University of Newfoundland.