Produced by Ric Ocasek, Adam Schlesinger, and Eli Janney, the album was released on September 18, 2007, in the United States by Epitaph Records.
Motion City Soundtrack, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, made a breakthrough with their second album, Commit This to Memory, garnering praise and independent buzz upon its 2005 release.
Following the release, the band toured relentlessly over the next two years, during which time frontman Justin Pierre struggled with alcohol and substance abuse.
The album received largely favorable reviews from music critics; Spin called the set "near-perfect pop", while The New York Times described it as "one long sugar rush".
The band played to larger crowds on the tours supporting Commit This to Memory, including over 9,000 fans on a Chicago date in 2005.
"Adam works 10 times faster than most people and he's already onto the next thing before you have a chance to think about what you did, so it was kind of like playing catch up," Pierre later recalled.
[5] Pierre expanded upon this in a 2015 interview, noting that he was disappointed with Ocasek's involvement: Then the other half of the record was working with Ric Ocasek… when he showed up.
That was probably one of the weirdest experiences because I think we thought one thing and found out another; oftentimes he would be there for a couple of hours a day and he just confused me the whole time and I didn't really know what he was talking about.
[4]Pierre called Chris Shaw, Ocasek's engineer, the "MVP" of the album, noting that he picked the best vocal takes and made it sound "amazing.
[8] The song includes guest vocals from Max Bemis of Say Anything, Rachel Minton of Zolof the Rock and Roll Destroyer and Shawn Harris of The Matches.
[10] While the band were aware that Even If Kills Me could be considered their commercial breakthrough, the record that "propels [them] into a Fall Out Boy-like orbit within the mainstream," Cain told a reporter in 2007 that "ultimately I don't think we care that much.
[3] Johnson noted that while the band failed to secure a gold record, radio airplay or MTV hits, they nonetheless had "dedicated fans, and we're really lucky for that.
[15] 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.
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...
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.
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.