Even If It Kills Me

Even if It Kills Me
Studio album by Motion City Soundtrack
Released September 18, 2007
Recorded Stratosphere Studios in Chelsea, New York
Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village, New York
Genre Pop punk
Length 43:29
Label Epitaph
Producer Ric Ocasek, Adam Schlesinger, Eli Janney
Motion City Soundtrack chronology
Commit This to Memory
(2005)		 Even if It Kills Me
(2007)		 My Dinosaur Life
(2010)
Singles from Even if It Kills Me
  1. "Broken Heart (Digital)"
    Released: June 26, 2007
  2. "This Is for Real"
    Released: August 7, 2007
  3. "It Had to Be You"
    Released: 2008

Even if It Kills Me is the third studio album by American pop punk band Motion City Soundtrack, released on September 18, 2007.[1] The album was a follow up to their 2005 album, Commit This to Memory and was co-produced by Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne and Eli Janney of Girls Against Boys, with part of the record also being produced by Ric Ocasek of The Cars.[2] It peaked at number one on the Independent Albums charts and at number 16 on the Billboard 200 chart,[3] selling around 33,000 albums in its first week.[4]

Contents

Singles and promotion

Three songs from Even if It Kills Me were released as singles. The first, "Broken Heart", was released three months prior to the album as a digital download on June 26, 2007. "This Is for Real" was released as the second single on August 7, 2007 in the US and on September 3 in the UK. It was released digitally, on CD and on limited edition 7" vinyl, and included three different b-sides; "Not Asking You to Leave", an acoustic version of "Broken Heart" (featuring Korin Louise Cox of The Hard Lessons) and a cover of the Lifter Puller song "Plymouth Rock". The band shot a video for "This Is for Real" in Southern California in August 2007, which premiered on mtvU.com on September 10. The third single "It Had to Be You" was released in early 2008, with a stop motion music video accompanying it.

Guest vocals on the album include Max Bemis of Say Anything, Rachel Minton of Zolof the Rock and Roll Destroyer and Shawn Harris of The Matches.[5]

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
AbsolutePunk (83%)[6]
Allmusic [7]
Alternative Press [8]
Big Cheese [9]
Blender [10]
CWG Magazine [11]
Popmatters (6/10)[12]
Rocklouder! [13]
Spin (favorable)[14]
The New York Times (favorable)[15]

Even if It Kills Me received a metascore of 68 on aggregrator Metacritic, indicating generally favorable reviews from six critics.[8] Spin endorsed the album, saying "Motion City have deftly filled that space between emotional adolescence and responsible adulthood with this set of near-perfect pop."[8] The New York Times reviewer Kelefa Sanneh commended the record, "Together they made an album that sounds like one long sugar rush, and so long as the rush lasts, it sounds pretty great." He praised singer Justin Pierre; who he says "never sounds better than when he’s rushing from an overwritten verse into a perfectly simple refrain."[15] Allmusic's Andrew Leahey also praised Pierre, saying he "is the star of this album". Leahey said the departure of Blink-182 from the fray could have prompted Motion City Soundtrack to become "the genre's new torchbearers". He went on to state that the band's "dedication to the pop genre... with roots in something harder" is a trait that could also be attributed to The Cars, of which one of the album's producers Ric Ocasek, was the frontman. He declared the band's choice to use three producers avoided "that nebulous point on Memory and I Am the Movie where the albums' final tracks begin to suffer from being so similar to their predecessors... There's no lull here, just fast-paced fun". However, entangled with the positivity, Leahey did observe the album's tendency to "consciously aim for commercial acceptance, but rarely at the expense of the quirks and literate lyrics that first endeared Motion City Soundtrack to its fans."[7]

Alternative Press gave the album 3/5 and was dismayed by it being too much of the same, saying "Much of the disc is business as usual."[8] Andy Greenwald of Blender rated the album 3/5 also, "Every generation needs a Weezer... and Motion City Soundtrack is the Weezer of emo." He was indifferent when it came to scrutinising Pierre, saying he "is a savvy melodic songwriter and, refreshingly, he’s completely incapable of taking himself seriously," noting an unusual lyric from the "bouncy standout 'It Had to Be You.'"[10] Popmatters reviewer Colin McGuire alluded numerous times to the simplicity the band exhibits that makes them appealing; "it’s their honestly simple lyrics that make Minneapolis’s most interesting five-piece so attractive," and "It’s no secret that it’s MCS’s inconsolably simplistic wit that has made them cult heroes." He rated the album 6/10; summing up in saying the "album has proven its loyalty to the sound that gained Motion City Soundtrack it’s legion of fans—colorful pop-punk led by a guy with tremendous hair singing about his heart being broken."[12]

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Motion City Soundtrack. 

No. Title Length
1. "Fell In Love Without You"   2:31
2. "This Is for Real"   3:10
3. "It Had To Be You"   3:48
4. "Last Night"   3:17
5. "Calling All Cops"   3:24
6. "Can't Finish What You Started"   3:56
7. "The Conversation"   2:50
8. "Broken Heart"   3:01
9. "Hello Helicopter"   4:23
10. "Where I Belong"   3:23
11. "Point Of Extinction"   2:39
12. "Antonia"   3:16
13. "Even If It Kills Me"   3:51
B-Sides
No. Title Length
1. "Not Asking You To Leave (Japanese bonus track)"   3:50
2. "The Worst Part (Sound Of Superman soundtrack)"   4:17
3. "Plymouth Rock (b-side on the UK version of the This Is For Real single)"   0:53
4. "Broken Heart"(Acoustic) (featuring Korin Louise Cox)"   3:11
iTunes Acoustic EP
No. Title Length
1. "Fell In Love Without You"   3:25
2. "It Had To Be You"   3:40
3. "Broken Heart"   3:16
4. "Can't Finish What You Started"   3:22
5. "Point Of Extinction"   2:52

Personnel

Band
Additional musicians
Production
  • Arjun Agerwala — Engineer
  • Tom Baker — Mastering
  • Rudyard Lee Cullers — Engineer
  • Femio Hernández — Assistant engineer
  • John Holbrook — Engineer
  • Eli Janney — Arranger, producer
  • Tom Lord-Alge — Mixing
  • Geoff Sanoff — Engineer
  • Michael Trepagnier — Assistant engineer
  • Chris Shaw — Engineer, mixing
Design
  • Nick Pritchard — Art direction, design
  • Bryan Sheffield — Photography
  • James Thornton — Photography

Chart performance

Year Chart Provider(s) Peak position
2007 Billboard 200[3] Billboard 16
Independent Albums[3] 1

References

  1. ^ motioncitycoundtrack.com News
  2. ^ "This Is For Real: A Conversation with Tony Thaxton of Motion City Soundtrack". Pop-Zap.com. http://www.pop-zap.com/conversations/this-is-for-real-a-conversation-with-tony-thaxton-motion-city-soundtrack. Retrieved 2008-06-30. 
  3. ^ a b c "Artist Albums Chart History for Motion City Soundtrack". Billboard.com. http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/retrieve_chart_history.do?model.chartFormatGroupName=Albums&model.vnuArtistId=515278&model.vnuAlbumId=954481. Retrieved 2008-06-08. 
  4. ^ Katie Hasty, "Reba Outmuscles Kanye, 50 To Score First No. 1", Billboard.com, September 26, 2007.
  5. ^ MTV News — For The Record: Quick News On Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Jermaine Dupri, Jagged Edge, Hillary Clinton & More March 21, 2007
  6. ^ Conny, Julia. "Motion City Soundtrack - Even if It Kills Me". AbsolutePunk. http://www.absolutepunk.net/showthread.php?t=266001. Retrieved 2009-10-25. 
  7. ^ a b Leahey, Andrew. "Even If It Kills Me". Allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/album/r1081036. Retrieved 2009-07-01. 
  8. ^ a b c d "Even If It Kills Me by Motion City Soundtrack". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/motioncitysoundtrack/evenifitkillsme. Retrieved 2009-07-01. 
  9. ^ Lowe, Tracey. "Motion City Soundtrack - Even if It Kills Me. Return of the Moog madness". Big Cheese. http://www.bigcheesemagazine.com//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1069&Itemid=32. Retrieved 3 January 2010. 
  10. ^ a b Greenwald, Andy. "Even If It Kills Me". Blender. http://www.blender.com/guide/reviews.aspx?id=4735. Retrieved 2009-07-01. 
  11. ^ Markunas, Jim (2008-01-26). "Album Review: Motion City Soundtrack - Even If It Kills Me.". Chicks With Guns Magazine (CWG). http://www.cwgmagazine.com/reviews/2008/01/motion-city-soundtrack-even-if-it-kills-me/. 
  12. ^ a b McGuire, Colin. "Motion City Soundtrack - Even if It Kills Me - Soundtrack for Fun". Popmatters. http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/motion-city-soundtrack-even-if-it-kills-me. Retrieved 2009-07-01. 
  13. ^ Sam Tolley. "Motion City Soundtrack - Even If It Kills Me". Rocklouder. http://www.rocklouder.co.uk/articles/4284/Motion-City-Soundtrack---Even-If-It-Kills-Me.html. Retrieved 2009-07-01. 
  14. ^ "Motion City Soundtrack, 'Even If It Kills Me' (Epitaph) - Minneapolis pop punkers stay together for the kids.". Spin Magazine. http://www.spin.com/reviews/motion-city-soundtrack-even-if-it-kills-me-epitaph. 
  15. ^ a b Sanneh, Kelefa (September 17, 2007). "Critic's Choice ; New CD's - Motion City Soundtrack". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9900E3DA1230F934A2575AC0A9619C8B63&scp=1&sq=Motion+City+Soundtrack&st=nyt. Retrieved 2009-07-01. 

External links

Motion City Soundtrack
Justin Pierre · Joshua Cain · Tony Thaxton · Matthew Taylor · Jesse Johnson
Sidney Burgdorf · Matt Potocnik · Joel Habedank · Austin Lindstrom · Andy Gruhn · Andy Whitney · Joe Skinner
Studio albums
I Am the Movie · Commit This to Memory · Even If It Kills Me · My Dinosaur Life
EPs
Kids for America · Back to the Beat · Live at Lollapalooza 2007 · Acoustic EP
Split EPs
Schatzi Split · Limbeck Split · Matchbook Romance Split
Singles
"Promenade/Carolina" · "The Future Freaks Me Out" · "My Favorite Accident" · "Everything Is Alright" · "Hold Me Down" · "L.G. Fuad" · "Broken Heart" · "This Is for Real" · "It Had to Be You" · "Fell In Love Without You (Acoustic)" · "Disappear" · "Her Words Destroyed My Planet" · "A Lifeless Ordinary (Need a Little Help)"
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