The Black and White Album

The Black and White Album is the fourth full-length album by Swedish rock band The Hives. The album was released on 15 October 2007, in the United Kingdom through Polydor Records and November 13, 2007, in the United States via A&M/Octone Records, No Fun Records, Universal Music Operations and Stockholm Records. The album was originally scheduled for release on 9 October in the United Kingdom; however, this date was postponed to 15 October for unknown reasons, as was the original US release of October 9, 2007.

The first single from the album, “Tick Tick Boom”, appears in the games Madden NFL 08 and Madden NFL 11, although it is an early version with some notable changes, such as an alternative chorus. The final version appears on the album as well as in NCAA Football 10. Clips from this song appeared in a Nike commercial shortly before the single’s release date, August 14 for the US and 24 September in the UK.
The band said they had recorded 20 to 30 songs (including seven recorded with super producers The Neptunes) for this album from which they finally chose the best. Other tracks were produced by Jacknife Lee and Dennis Herring. Sessions were held with Timbaland, with whom the band produced the song “Throw It On Me”, but took place too late for any of the resulting tracks to be on the album. They hoped to use these songs as B-sides.
The album’s track listing was confirmed on the band’s German website on 13 September 2007, and later through NME.
By 9 October, “Tick Tick Boom”, “Try It Again”, “You Got It All… Wrong”, “Well All Right!”, “Won’t Be Long” and “Fall Is Just Something Grownups Invented” were available on iTunes.