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This Is War
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This Is War
This Is War is the third studio album by American rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars, released on December 8, 2009 through Virgin Records. It was the band's first studio album in four years, after the breakthrough of their previous work, A Beautiful Lie (2005). The album was recorded over a span of two years while the band was in the midst of a legal dispute with Virgin over an alleged breach-of-contract. The case was later settled in April 2009, and the band signed to EMI later that year.
The album marked a departure from the band's previous material, implementing a more experimental direction that draws influence from progressive rock, new wave, industrial, and heavy metal music. Lyrically, it is a conceptual record shaped by the band's personal struggles and legal battle with their record label, and is sometimes considered a rock opera. It was accompanied by the documentary film Artifact (2012), which chronicled the dispute.
This Is War received general acclaim from critics, who praised its instrumentation and experimental direction, and was nominated for the Echo Music Prize. It reached the top ten of several national album charts and has since sold over four million copies worldwide. The record was primarily promoted through the Into the Wild Tour, which earned the band a Guinness World Record for most live shows during a single album cycle, with 300 shows.
Thirty Seconds to Mars was 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 obliged to deliver under their 1999 contract with the now-defunct Immortal Records. In 2004, Virgin took over the contract. Jared Leto responded to some of the claims in the suit on the band's website and dismissed rumors that the group had disbanded. He said the claims were "ridiculously overblown" and "totally unrealistic", before stating that "under California law, where we live and signed our deal, one cannot be bound to a contract for more than seven years." Thirty 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to Mars had been contracted for nine years, so the band decided to exercise their "legal right to terminate our old, out-of-date contract, which according to the law is null and void."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 defense 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." Thirty 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 while 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."
Leto produced a documentary Artifact, which depicted the state of the modern music industry through their dispute with their record company. Other musicians also gave accounts of their industry experiences. The film premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, where it was well received and won the People's Choice Award for Best Documentary.
During recording sessions, the band hosted a gathering, which they called "The Summit", at the Avalon club in Los Angeles. The purpose of the gathering was to deepen the band's connection with the fans by involving them in the making of the album. Approximately 1,000 fans from across the U.S. and Europe showed up for The Summit. Their participation in the recording process ranged from providing percussion and whispers on some tracks to singing the whole chorus of a song. In an interview with MTV, frontman Jared Leto described the process as an experiment saying "It was quite simply one of the best things we've done as a band". Leto also revealed in the interview that the album's style would be leaning more towards that of their self-titled debut than that of A Beautiful Lie,[better source needed] with most songs clocking in over five minutes. Describing the experimental recording process, he said:
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This Is War
This Is War is the third studio album by American rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars, released on December 8, 2009 through Virgin Records. It was the band's first studio album in four years, after the breakthrough of their previous work, A Beautiful Lie (2005). The album was recorded over a span of two years while the band was in the midst of a legal dispute with Virgin over an alleged breach-of-contract. The case was later settled in April 2009, and the band signed to EMI later that year.
The album marked a departure from the band's previous material, implementing a more experimental direction that draws influence from progressive rock, new wave, industrial, and heavy metal music. Lyrically, it is a conceptual record shaped by the band's personal struggles and legal battle with their record label, and is sometimes considered a rock opera. It was accompanied by the documentary film Artifact (2012), which chronicled the dispute.
This Is War received general acclaim from critics, who praised its instrumentation and experimental direction, and was nominated for the Echo Music Prize. It reached the top ten of several national album charts and has since sold over four million copies worldwide. The record was primarily promoted through the Into the Wild Tour, which earned the band a Guinness World Record for most live shows during a single album cycle, with 300 shows.
Thirty Seconds to Mars was 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 obliged to deliver under their 1999 contract with the now-defunct Immortal Records. In 2004, Virgin took over the contract. Jared Leto responded to some of the claims in the suit on the band's website and dismissed rumors that the group had disbanded. He said the claims were "ridiculously overblown" and "totally unrealistic", before stating that "under California law, where we live and signed our deal, one cannot be bound to a contract for more than seven years." Thirty 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 defense 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." Thirty 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 while 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."
Leto produced a documentary Artifact, which depicted the state of the modern music industry through their dispute with their record company. Other musicians also gave accounts of their industry experiences. The film premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, where it was well received and won the People's Choice Award for Best Documentary.
During recording sessions, the band hosted a gathering, which they called "The Summit", at the Avalon club in Los Angeles. The purpose of the gathering was to deepen the band's connection with the fans by involving them in the making of the album. Approximately 1,000 fans from across the U.S. and Europe showed up for The Summit. Their participation in the recording process ranged from providing percussion and whispers on some tracks to singing the whole chorus of a song. In an interview with MTV, frontman Jared Leto described the process as an experiment saying "It was quite simply one of the best things we've done as a band". Leto also revealed in the interview that the album's style would be leaning more towards that of their self-titled debut than that of A Beautiful Lie,[better source needed] with most songs clocking in over five minutes. Describing the experimental recording process, he said: