Shannon Leto has no public middle name, confirming that he is a weird/private individual, but doesn’t hold a candle to his little brother Jared Joseph Leto. Their band 30 Second to Mars signed with Virgin Records, and released their debut album in 2002 to a small/loyal following. It took a minute for the album to spread, but that LP is now double platinum, proving that the band’s mission statement successfully welcomed them to the global music universe. We ranked 30STM’s six studio albums below.
6. America (2018)
Even though “America,” is the band’s fifth and highest charting record on the Billboard 200, and by far their most “pop” effort, it didn’t, err, pop with critics and longtime fans of the band. Furthermore, “America” inspired many negative and bitter social media comments from basements in Kentucky on the Letos’ pages, and all waters such as oceans, lakes, rivers, and bathtubs. Still, features from such underground metalheads as Halsey, A$AP Rocky, Hurley International clothing, and Rocky Balboa, successfully break the monotony in Journey’s “Africa”.
Play it again: “Rescue Me”
Skip it: “Dawn Will Rise”
5. It’s the End of the World but It’s a Beautiful Day (2023)
The band’s newest release “It’s the End of the World but It’s a Beautiful Day” isn’t Thirty Seconds to Mars’ worst album by a shortshot, but echoes the meh vibe of its predecessor, just with slightly better songs. This is likely accomplished via this LP being released with the largest gap between albums of the band’s career as Mr. Leto da frontman was quite busy playing the part of The Joker, the midnight toker, yelling Trapt’s critically praised ninth studio album “Requiem,” started a kombucha/sea cruise cult with Andrew Keegan of “Camp Nowhere”; Google it it’s weird. In closing, “Stuck” is a powerhouse opening track, and our/your boi Tomo is missed.
Play it again: “Rescue Me”
Skip it: “Lost These Days” but NEVER R.E.M., U2, Robin Tunney, or Russell Ira “Traditional IRA Tax Deduction” Crowe
4. Self-Titled (2002)
The first and last time that the word “thirty” is listed numerically for 30STM is on this debut record and its literal title, and the band subsequently removed such branding for all five albums moving forward to avoid blink-182, 22 Jacks, Against Me! 41, and Eiffel 65 comparisons, despite sonically sounding identical in every which way to all of the above. The band started far from the edge of the earth and/or oblivion with notable from Danny Lohner of Nine Inch Nails, Maynard James Keenan of every band of all time including Tool, A Perfect Circle, Children of the Anachronistic Dynasty, and Randall “Tex” Cobb, and Cher’s son with the now disgraced Eric Clapton. The songs here are great, but the band altered missions for the next three LPs that flew ‘em higher than 93 million miles.
Play it again: “Buddha For Mary”
Skip it: “Welcome To The Universe”
3. Love Lust Faith + Dreams (2013)
“This Is War” would’ve been difficult for any band to follow-up, but “Love, Lust, Faith and Dreams,” despite having an album title worse than the lyrics in “Hollaback Girl,” is Thirty Seconds To Mars’ best album before 2005 and after 2009. Genre wise the album slightly deviated from symphonic alt-rock territory into a more experiential fashion, and ardently blindly faithful Leto-heads all over Varanasi, the City of Angels, France, and the hot and blinding sun rejoiced like conquistadors.
Play it again: “Up In The Air”
Skip it: “Pyres Of Varanasi”
2. A Beautiful Lie (2005)
As we said and alluded to earlier, the next two albums from alt-J that we highlight below will once again spout a band name sans justification. This one belongs to My Chemical Romance in every Way from yesterday/today. Honestly, if the four singles from “A Beautiful Mind,” “Attack,” “The Kill,” “From Yesterday,” and the literal title track was a four-song EP called “A Beautiful Mind Because Of An Omission Of Six Songs,” Thirty Seconds to Mars would’ve trumped Ugly Kid Joe’s classic extended play “As Ugly as They Wanna Be.” Sadly, this album contains a tad bit of filler, and thus, pisses you off in the silver medal slot.
Play it again: “The Kill”
Skip it: “R-Evolve”
1. This Is War (2009)
Let’s start this gold medal-winning 30STM album with a bold posit: Thirty Seconds to Mars’ third album “This Is War” has ZERO legally obligated “skip it” tracks here because there are ZERO songs worth omitting, and, in a lack of proof for such, The Smashing Pumpkins’ epically symphonic orchestral influence from “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.” “This Is War” as an entity is truly a well-read rainbow, and supplies its many fans with green M&Ms that don’t make you gassy and have antioxidants that Erewhon would smile at. Let’s end/escape this piece with one more band name/Jeff Goldblum reference: T. Rex.
Play it again: “Escape” to “L490”
Skip it: This was peace
Krug Stillo represents the absolute worst parts of humanity. He’s a murdering, drug dealing, child abusing, sexual predator who bullies his own son into suicide. There’s absolutely no way this man is supporting therapy and he probably thinks people who go are weak.
This character is disgusting in every possible sense of the word. He’s a sexual predator, a murderer and a foot fetishist. Yet somehow, he still managed to be made of the same genetic ingredients as his much more charming and attractive brother. There’s no way Richie Gecko is seeking therapy.
The patriarch of our favorite messed-up little backwoods family, the nameless gas station owner, simply credited as “The Old Man” would never be caught dead in therapy. And he would disown his own children seven ways from Sunday if he caught them in one. He really is a bastard too. A cannibal, a murderer, a child abuser. The old man’s motto is: “There’s just some things you have to do in life. Don’t mean you gotta like it.” That sounds pretty close to: “Toughen up, snowflake” to us.
Forget about God-complexes, what do you do when you’re literally the personification of God? He isn’t a villain in the technical sense of the word. More just a deeply negligent gaslighter (who may have engaged in some light cannibalism). Still, He’s an artsy poet, living in seclusion with His much younger wife, who he steamrolls. He’s every bit as villainous as the average liberal arts college English professor. And only slightly more likely to seek therapy.
Speaking of God, you just know this man doesn’t believe in therapy. If “Night of the Hunter” were set in the modern day, Harry Powell would be an uber right wing evangelical who posts on Facebook about how “Back in my day, we didn’t go to therapy. Back in my day we drank from the garden hose, said yes sir to the garden hose and got beaten by the garden hose when we were bad.” He also probably would’ve probably convinced a ton of people to go to the Capitol on January 6th, but wouldn’t have dared go himself.
This one’s a trick entry. Art the Clown would more than happily go to a therapist’s office. At the end of the day. While the therapist is closing up. Why? Simple. To eat the therapist’s face and rub feces on his walls.
You gotta hand it to Michael Myers. That man was dedicated to not working on himself. Even as a child. He was six years old when he whacked his sister. That’s stage two of Piaget’s Stages of Development. He barely had object permanence down. But the minute he got to Smith’s Grove, Michael Myers went quiet, and then proceeded to spend a decade and a half ignoring every therapist that tried to talk to him before escaping again.
It’s odd that Freddy is “the funny one” of all the classic slashers. The one with personality. Really, he is the most despicable of all of them, considering most of his victims when he was still alive were young children. Freddy clearly never went to therapy for the plethora of violent mental illnesses plaguing him. Now, he’s a vengeful, knife-fingered ghost. And worse… a guy who won’t stop doing bits.
The science officer on the Nostromo, secret android and annoying-ass Nietzsche guy, Ash isn’t going to therapy. For one thing, he’s a robot. He doesn’t have authentic human emotions. But more than that, he’s the type of scientist who discredits psychology outright because he thinks it’s a “soft science” with no value.
Similar to Him in “mother!,” Jack Torrance isn’t a fan of asking for help. He’s a troubled playwright who thinks that in order to be artistically valid you need to misuse substances. And admittedly… he’s right. The combined bloodstreams of the writers here at the Hard Times could probably fill a CVS.
Men would literally rather completely populate an idyllic English village and then give birth to identical copies of themselves out of improvised wombs for about three straight minutes than go to therapy.
Margaret White is a truly horrifying (and tragic) human being. A religious fanatic, a child abuser and someone deeply unskilled at chopping carrots. Margaret definitely needs therapy, since she’s carrying around some heavy-duty trauma from her husband, but she probably thinks that therapy is sinful, so we really highly doubt that she’d go.
Ellen is from that generation that would rather become a literal queen of Hell, by wedding the living spirit of the demon Paimon in the form of her granddaughter in the body of her grandson than go to therapy. It’s tragic as we know she suffers from mental illnesses, but as anyone who’s ever talked to their grandparents knows, she’s not going.
Lord Summerisle doesn’t go to therapy. Lord Summerisle buys candles from Gwyneth Paltrow. Lord Summerisle goes for a walk in the woods because it’s “better than antidepressants.” Lord Summerisle is excited to tell you how promising LSD and psilocybin have been in treating depression and anxiety and doesn’t want to hear a word about THC-induced schizophrenia. Our bodies come from the earth. So we should try herbal remedies.
We realize we’ve used this one before, but men would also rather invent complicated scientific potions that render them completely invisible, hatch a scheme to take over the world and derail a train just for shits and giggles than go to therapy. Real talk, though, the original Invisible Man’s outfit is pretty amazing. The overcoat, the top hat, and those four-lensed sunglasses. Those sunglasses are so iconic, they’re actually now commonly called Griffin Sunglasses because of this man. Ten points for being a fashion pioneer. No points for mental health. But who needs good mental health when you’ve got style for days?
Close your eyes. Well, actually don’t. You need them to read this. Imagine you’ve closed your eyes. Now with your eyes not closed, imagine the world if Dads went to therapy. It’s pretty nice, right? Ah well. Not to be in this case, sadly. Nathan Grantham is a crusty old fucker with one thing on his mind. Father’s Day Cake.
A titan of Wall Street, the only killer in the ‘80s with a more sadistic agenda than Patrick Bateman was Ronald Reagan himself. That being said, it does actually seem like that Patrick would go to therapy. He has those male manipulator vibes. He’d go because his girlfriend forced him to, but he’d go to one session, spend it talking about how much she drives him crazy and then use therapy buzzwords to more effectively gaslight the people around him.
Like “Rick and Morty” fans on the prowl for Szechuan Sauce, Annie Wilkes is one bad parasocial interaction away from having a total and complete meltdown. The difference is, while “Rick and Morty” fans throw outrageous temper tantrums and walls of angry, ranting text online when they don’t get their way, Annie proceeds with simple homicidal intention. More power to her, I say.
Listen, we’ve talked a lot about men over the course of this list. Now, let’s discuss Moms. Moms would rather set up an elaborate city-wide maze of deception and gruesome violence before taking you to meet your penis-monster Dad and then having you symbolically re-inserted into the womb via drowning than go to therapy. Real talk, I do think Mona would go to one session with a therapist, but the minute the therapist tried to tell her that her attachment to her son was unhealthy, she’d storm out. Also, she owns a pharmaceutical company, so there’s no way she’s getting hooked on her own supply.
Everyone dreams of that special day. That special day that comes only once in a lifetime. That day, of course, is the day you see your step-parents cry. Sadly for Kevin and Kaylee, the Entity in Kyle Edward Ball’s “Skinamarink” that serves as their de facto wicked step-parent is made of sterner stuff than that. The Entity believes that TV is the best babysitter a child can have, in corporal punishment (knives in eyes, loss of mouth privileges, and a good old fashioned no toilet day). It’s not going to go to therapy. It probably believes all medical services are just wastes of money.
Mr. Mommy Issues himself, Norman Bates is a soul badly in need of some therapy to deal with his complicated and manifold issues with women and sex. It would be hard to get him to go, though. He’s from that era where the stigma around therapy is just too great. Plus, he’d have to see if his mother would let him go.
Rocky—the hunky titular character—is perhaps the original himbo. After all, he was literally created to be a muscleman sex machine! If that’s the vibe you’re going for (more power to you), all you have to do is show up to the Halloween party with blonde hair and a tan in a gold speedo. This will let everyone with a pulse know that you are a virile bi sex icon.
If you’ve ever had your lover chopped to pieces by your ex-lover and then served for dinner, then there is no better costume for you than Columbia. She’s also a good fit if you just feel like looking shiny and not straight. Toss on a sparkly bowler hat and blazer, grab an oversized bowtie, and give yourself a ginger bob in your roommate’s bathroom. Then put on some pale foundation and tap dance over all over everyone’s preconceived notions about your sexual orientation!
Brad is the perfect character to dress up as if you consider yourself questioning, heteroflexible, or you’re just looking for a costume you can pick up at Goodwill that gives off big “who knows, I could sleep with anyone here” energy. Throw on some Buddy Holly glasses, a navy sweater vest over a sky blue button-down, and don’t forget those tighty-whities!
There are very few queer characters quite as iconic as Dr. Frank-N-Furter. A “sweet transvestite from Transexual, Transylvania,” this mad scientist with a face beat for the gods has had an outsized influence on decades of LGBTQ+ youth. If you’re sure you’re ready to come out—and want to feel decidedly bold and beautiful while doing it—show up as Dr. Frank, platform heels and all. Don’t dream it, be it!
To be honest, going as Riff Raff or Magenta is a risky choice. People in the know might remember these two space siblings as kinda incesty, and everyone else will probably just think you’re dressed as zombie versions of Anya Taylor and Helena Bonham Carter. But hey, you do you. At least no one will wrongly assume you’re a cishet anymore!
Weezer’s “Pinkerton” is the blueprint for the ultimate sophomore full-length album, and sadly “Aggressive” just isn’t. However, it was sort of doomed to be almost hated from the start as Beartooth’s debut album “Disgusting” was beyond difficult to follow, and that’s putting it mildly. To put it aggressively in all caps: DISGUSTING WAS BEYOND DIFFICULT TO FOLLOW! Honestly, however you want it said, Beartooth has no bad albums, and this shouldn’t make you sick of the band. Maybe Caleb, who recorded ALL of the instruments on this record and its predecessor, should’ve taken more time here, unintentionally making the process less aggressive, but far more succinct and deliberate. Happily, Beartooth’s follow up records were all solid in every manner that matters.
Does the word “the” count as a word? We mean, if we’re alphabetizing THE Beatles, it goes under “B,” right? Don’t look the other way about this issue and leave your thoughts in the comments. Seriously! Anyway, we are concerned about Beartooth breaking THE cycle by having three letters before a singular word. Regarding “The Surface,” Beartooth’s most recent record as of now is as pop as they’ve ever been and that’s not a bad thing, despite what you all think of Metallica’s “Load” and “Reload,” and Caleb Shomo’s new positive outlook, newly toned bod, knack for writing incredible melodies, and many shirtless pics from live shows and beyond all ensure that his new reality doesn’t attack a snack. Also, a Hardy feature is a badass move from a scene band and this is the last time we will romanticize said utilization.
Beartooth’s third studio LP “Disease” features their coolest sans hyperbole actual album cover by Nicole Valentina Angel, and yes that is the actual name of the artist unless it’s a nickname, a return to form vibe that destroys its predecessor, twelve extremely solid tracks, and is the act’s first recording with other band members not named Caleb Shomo on it: Zach “Angelica” Huston on guitar, Connor “Clarence” Thomas on drums, Oshie “Cool Name Unless It’s A Nickname But It’s Still Cool To Say Out Loud Just Try It” Bichar on bass, and Kamron “Ray” Bradbury on guitar. Eventually, Kamron left the band and was replaced by Will “Will Deely” Deely of Heavy Things/Light Containers on rhythm guitar; if you don’t memorize all of these individual names you’re a real bad listener.
Now we’re at the silver medal winning and runner-up section verbalizing our unbiased love for “Below,” Beartooth’s second-best and fourth LP, and without question their most superior effort since their strong AF debut. This record may be the band’s heaviest from front to back, which makes sense in that it’s the band’s first post-Covid release. Lockdown changed a lot of peoples’ perspectives on life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and general socialization, and the album’s title/opening track “Below” set the tone for its eleven subsequent ones and justified its metal as metal can be, unless we are discussing specific rocks from our eighth grade Earth Science class taught by Mr. Wertovich album cover. Critics from inferior publications lauded “Below,” and reviews for such were more favorable than most bands in the scene.
Wanna know what isn’t disgusting in any way, shape, form, or shmegegge? Obviously, it’s Alex Ploegsma’s extensive t-shirt collection featuring late ‘90s/early aughts yelling and screaming acts with cool yet faded in the most epically vintage in the best way designs. Anyway, we’re at the end here, so let’s go back to the beginning and say one truly kind and truthful thing about Beartooth’s debut LP “Disgusting”: There are no “skip it” tracks here. None. Zilch. Zero. Nein. They say a band or artist has their whole life to make their first album, and in a unique twist, this record was created by an artist moonlighting as an actual band. In closing, if you want to cry in a similar fashion as you likely did Korn’s self-titled debut album closer “Daddy,” check out the final track “Sick and Disgusting”.