“Up in the Air” by 30 Seconds to Mars

"Up in the Air" launched Love, Lust, Faith and Dreams, the fourth studio album by Thirty Seconds to Mars, in March 2013, and launched is the right word: the song premiered from the International Space Station, having been flown up aboard a spacecraft packed with science experiments. Jared Leto wrote it and produced it with Steve Lillywhite, and it steers the band toward electronics and new wave, an inward-looking meditation on human consciousness in a sleeker sound than the band had used before.

Critics mostly liked it, singling out its range of sounds and its introspection, and it climbed to number three on the US Alternative Songs chart. Leto also directed the video, a parade of references to other art forms that won Best Rock Video at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.