Listening Post

Still working insane hours -- while trying to get over the cold Inara gave me -- putting together a project that's up against deadline, so it's still going to be pretty quiet around here today and through tomorrow.

Here's the new Thirty Seconds To Mars single -- Up in the Air.

Listening Post

There's no denying that somewhere between A Beautiful Lie and This Is War, Jared Leto and 30 Seconds To Mars developed a seriously inflated sense of self-worth. While the former was a damn good, relatively straightforward alt rock record, the latter album is full of angelic choral bombast and audacious themes and every promotional clip made from it has billed itself as an epic "short film" rather than a simple music video -- culminating in this 13-minute monstrosity.

Yeah, this thing is filled to the brim with artistic ambitions, Kubrickian pretensions and ostentatious shock value -- but there's no denying that it's sumptuously shot and at least it's doing something interesting with the video medium. Plus it succeeds in making the song seem quite a bit better than it is when you take away all the impressive visuals.

Here's the unedited version of Hurricane.

Listening Post

Man if these guys didn't try way too hard to be U2 on that last album -- and wound up coming off more like Angels and Airwaves (despite the spectacular Kings and Queens). Still, this is the kind of balls-out epic live touring video a lot of bands don't even bother to make anymore, and it's entertaining for that reason alone.

Here's 30 Seconds to Mars -- Closer To the Edge.

Listening Post

Still a very big fan of this song.

Here's 30 Seconds to Mars -- Attack.

Listening Post

The covers performed by the bands that play BBC 1's Live Lounge are always interesting, to say the least. Is this one a hit or a miss? I'll let you be the judge.

Here's 30 Seconds to Mars doing Lady GaGa's Bad Romance.

(Whatever you think, it's better than that annoying kid with the Justin Bieber hair -- the one who's managed to become the next tween sensation we'll all be forced to suffer through by posting a clip of himself playing Paparazzi on YouTube. Somebody please stop the madness.)

Listening Post: The 20 Best Singles of 2009 (2 & 1)

2. Civil Twilight -- Letters from the Sky

While it may be the only ballad that made the list of the 20 Best Singles of 2009, Letters from the Sky deservedly sits far above almost every other song on the countdown. Passionate, powerful and profoundly moving, the breakthrough single from South Africa's Civil Twilight was that rarest of songs: one whose urgency you could actually feel in your bones, that seemed to bleed raw emotion and which had the ability to stop you cold and nearly bring you to your knees at the notion that something could so perfectly express the simultaneous sense of hope and joy, and desperation and tragedy, that makes being in love a state of ironically terrifying grace. What's more, the rest of Civil Twilight's sophomore album, originally released as an independent, was equally excellent -- particularly the hauntingly beautiful Human. But it was Letters from the Sky that swelled and resonated with the kind of epic longing that kept it echoing in your heart for days after it had faded from your ears.




1. 30 Seconds to Mars -- Kings and Queens

In a year when there was little to be found worth being optimistic about, it's ironic -- or maybe it was simply necessary -- that the best single released by any band or artist was a soaring, dramatic full-on rock anthem. It's likely also not a coincidence that that anthem roared so loudly with revival-tent inspirationalism that it was easy to miss the fact that the song was basically, and fittingly, about the end of the world. 30 Seconds to Mars's Kings and Queens exploded out of your speakers in a wall of big, bold reverb and never let up, even when frontman Jared Leto brought the verses down to a near whisper. For the kind of song it was, it was the perfect song: an ambitious, walloping paean to U2 with just enough lofty symphonic pretentiousness to make you take it seriously but not so much that you laughed at the young band with the chutzpah to attempt it. Call it Where the Brats Have No Name. More than anything else, though, it was simply a really, really good pop-rock single -- heroic and hopeful, like a call to arms shouted from the top of a mountain, and chill-inducing in its youthful exuberance. Nothing else on 30 Seconds to Mars's 2009 album This is War even came close to matching its quality, but maybe that just added to the feeling that, in a very dark year, Kings and Queens was something special.



The 20 Best Singles of 2009: 3. Phoenix -- 1901; 4. Silversun Pickups -- Panic Switch

The 20 Best Singles of 2009: 5. Lady GaGa -- Bad Romance; 6. Alice in Chains -- Check My Brain

The 20 Best Singles of 2009: 7. Spinnerette -- Baptized by Fire; 8. Deadmau5 & Kaskade -- I Remember

The 20 Best Singles of 2009: 9. The Dead Weather -- Treat Me Like Your Mother; 10. My Chemical Romance -- Desolation Row

The 20 Best Singles of 2009: 11. Little Boots -- New In Town; 12. Miike Snow -- Silvia

The 20 Best Singles of 2009: 13. The Sounds -- No One Sleeps When I'm Awake; 14. Blue October -- Dirt Room

The 20 Best Singles of 2009: 15. Jay-Z (w/Alicia Keys) -- Empire State of Mind; 16. Company of Thieves -- Oscar Wilde

The 20 Best Singles of 2009: 17. Yeah Yeah Yeahs -- Heads Will Roll; 18. Doves -- Jetstream

The 20 Best Singles of 2009: 19. Mos Def -- Quiet Dog; 20. Florence + the Machine -- Kiss With a Fist

Listening Post

I put this song up a couple of weeks back, but now the video for it has finally been released and as you'd expect for one of the better soaring rock anthems to come along in quite awhile, it's gorgeous and grand in scale -- billing itself as a "film" rather than simply a music video and featuring, inexplicably, a two-and-a-half minute credit sequence for a six minute song.

Either way, the song is still one of my favorites at the moment (and the video really does make me miss the hell out of L.A.).

Here's the first single from the upcoming 30 Seconds to Mars album This Is War. It's Kings and Queens.

Listening Post

Oh, Jordan Catalano. Why do you continue to make me swoon so with your chiseled features, perfect, now-emo haircut and your soaring rock anthems?

I love you almost as much as Angela and that annoying gay kid she hangs out with do.

Someday, Jordan. Someday I will have you.

Here's the ridiculously good new single from 30 Seconds to Mars -- Kings and Queens.

Listening Post

These guys catch a lot of crap because their lead singer is the dreamy Jordan Catalano, but their last album was shockingly good as pop-rock records go.

And this Shining-themed video is darn clever.

Here's 30 Seconds to Mars -- The Kill.