''Fabulous Muscles'' is the third album by American experimental band
Xiu Xiu
Xiu Xiu ( ) is an American experimental band, formed in 2002 by singer-songwriter Jamie Stewart in San Jose, California. Currently, the line-up consists of Stewart (the only constant member since formation) and Angela Seo. The band's name co ...
, released on February 17, 2004 on
5 Rue Christine. The album marked a change in the band's sound, described as a
depressive mix between
experimental rock
Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre. Artists aim to liberate and innovate, with ...
and
synth-pop
Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s ...
.
[ It is considered to be more accessible than Xiu Xiu's previous two studio albums, '' A Promise'' and '']Knife Play
''Knife Play'' is the debut studio album by Xiu Xiu, released on February 19, 2002.
Content
A sticker on the cover of the album reads "When my mom died I listened to Henry Cowell, Joy Division, Detroit techno, the Smiths, Takemitsu, Black Sabbat ...
''. ''Fabulous Muscles'' has received mostly positive reviews from critics.
Overview
''Fabulous Muscles'' was Xiu Xiu's third album in two years. The album was recorded in Oakland
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...
and Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
and was produced by band member Cory McCulloch.[Xiu Xiu – Fabulous Muscles (CD, Album)]
Discogs
Discogs (short for discographies) is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. While the site was originally created with a goal of becoming the la ...
. Retrieved 1 July 2011 The album's cover features frontman Jamie Stewart nuzzling a toy kitten.
Several reviewers found ''Fabulous Muscles'' to have a more accessible sound than Xiu Xiu's previous albums. On recording the album, Stewart said:
Stewart contributed the title track to a tribute CD, ''The Ash Gray Proclamation'', for author Dennis Cooper
Dennis Cooper (born January 10, 1953) is an American novelist, poet, critic, editor and performance artist. He is best known for the ''George Miles Cycle'', a series of five semi-autobiographical novels published between 1989 and 2000 and describ ...
. He said that he would not have been able to write a song like that without having read Cooper's books, since Cooper helped Stewart "to feel ... that it was possible to be more open" due to his "frankness".
Themes and lyrics
''Fabulous Muscles'' is populated by dark themes, including depression, physical abuse
Physical abuse is any intentional act causing injury or trauma to another person or animal by way of bodily contact. In most cases, children are the victims of physical abuse, but adults can also be victims, as in cases of domestic violence or wo ...
, mental abuse
Psychological abuse, often called emotional abuse, is a form of abuse characterized by a person subjecting or exposing another person to a behavior that may result in psychological trauma, including anxiety, chronic depression, or post-traumatic ...
, and drug addiction
Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to engage in certain behaviors, one of which is the usage of a drug, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use of ...
.
Jamie Stewart told ''Pitchfork'' that the tone of the album reflected the events of his personal life, which were "incredibly, incredibly violent, incredibly jarring and difficult to take... and personally and politically extreme in black and white ways". His next studio album, ''The Air Force'', reflects his experience internalizing the trauma of that period.
The album's title track was inspired by the Iceberg Slim
Robert Beck (born Robert Lee Maupin or Robert Moppins Jr.; August 4, 1918 – April 30, 1992), better known as Iceberg Slim, was a former American pimp who later became a writer. Beck's novels were adapted into films.
Early life
Robert Ma ...
novel ''Mama Black Widow'' and describes an abusive relationship between a muscle-worshiping Stewart and a hyper-masculine man. The song "Brian the Vampire" is based on a child Stewart encountered during his time as a preschool teacher in California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
. According to Stewart, "His whole family lived in one garage and his older brother ... was molesting Brian at night while the whole family was sleeping in the room." The penultimate "Clowne Towne" sees Stewart reflect on the current statuses of friends from his teens and young adulthood (such as Michael Hadreas of Perfume Genius or fellow Xiu Xiu member Caralee McElroy) and how they compare to his own. "Mike" is a tribute to Stewart's late father Michael Stewart, who committed suicide in 2002, while "Support Our Troops OH! (Black Angels OH!)" is about Stewart's distaste about soldiers serving in the Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...
.[Goldberg, Michael]
For Xiu Xiu's Jamie Stewart, the Personal is Political is Permissible for Creative License
17 March 2004. Retrieved 1 July 2011
Reception
''Fabulous Muscles'' received mostly positive reviews. On the review aggregate site Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, the album has a score of 80 out of 100, indicating "Generally favorable reviews".[ Critics were generally receptive to the album's more accessible sound.
Heather Phares of ]AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
wrote that ''Fabulous Muscles'' "might be the best expression of Xiu Xiu's unrepentantly original music; even if the world that the band creates isn't necessarily one you'd want to visit all the time, it remains fascinating."[ '']Pitchfork
A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves.
The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...
''s Matt LeMay also praised the album, writing, "Though there are many notable high points to ''Fabulous Muscles'', its overwhelming consistency is what cements its place as Xiu Xiu's finest. The album does not contain a single hiccup or yawn-- no extraneous noise, no potentially offputting histrionics, no throwaways and no dull moments." The album also received a "Best New Music" designation in the review.[ Adrien Begrand of '']PopMatters
''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, fi ...
'' praised it as "more focused and direct" than ''A Promise''.
Robert Christgau
Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and ...
of ''The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...
'' panned the album, writing, "The musical parsimony, cultural insularity, moral certitude, and histrionic affectations of these lo-fi artier-than-thous promise indie ideologues whole lifetimes of egoistic irrelevance."[ '']Stylus Magazine
''Stylus Magazine'' was an American online music and film magazine, launched in 2002 and co-founded by Todd L. Burns. It featured long-form music journalism, four daily music reviews, movie reviews, podcasts, an MP3 blog, and a text blog.
Addi ...
''s Akiva Gottlieb wrote, "Obviously, Stewart has a penchant for self-examination—some of it brilliant and incisive—but his work is also obnoxiously self-indulgent."[
''Fabulous Muscles'' has appeared on a few end of year lists. '' The Morning News'' named it the 7th best album of 2004.][Womack, Andrew]
The Top 10 Albums of 2004
The Morning News. 20 December 2004. Retrieved 1 July 2011 Pitchfork Media
''Pitchfork'' (formerly ''Pitchfork Media'') is an American online music publication (currently owned by Condé Nast) that was launched in 1995 by writer Ryan Schreiber as an independent music blog.
Schreiber started Pitchfork while working ...
ranked ''Fabulous Muscles'' #50 on their list of the top 50 albums of 2004.[Pitchfork Staff]
Pitchfork: Staff Lists: Top 50 Albums of 2004
Pitchfork Media
''Pitchfork'' (formerly ''Pitchfork Media'') is an American online music publication (currently owned by Condé Nast) that was launched in 1995 by writer Ryan Schreiber as an independent music blog.
Schreiber started Pitchfork while working ...
. 31 December 2004. Retrieved 1 July 2011. In addition, the same website ranked the song "I Luv the Valley OH!" #176 on their list of the Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s, with reviewer Brian Howe writing "A great Xiu Xiu song is like someone actually hurting himself, right in front of you. This I Luv the Valley OH!"isn't their most violent effort, but it's their most scouring; a place where mortar-round drums pound down on rolling bass and chiming guitars, unsubtly conveying the painful insight that some dreams have to be razed, not realized."[Pitchfork Staff]
The Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s: 200-101
. 18 August 2009. Retrieved 1 July 2011. The album also placed 19th on Tiny Mix Tapes favorite albums of 2000-2009.
Brandon Stosuy of ''Pitchfork'' described the album as "brilliant" and a blend of "circus music and shattered death disco".
Track listing
Personnel
The following people contributed to ''Fabulous Muscles'':[Fabulous Muscles - Credits]
Retrieved 1 July 2011
Xiu Xiu
* Lauren Andrews - Synthesizer (2), Percussion (5)
* Jherek Bischoff
Jherek Brandon Bischoff (born September 11, 1979) is an American composer, arranger, producer, and multi-instrumental performer. He has released over a dozen studio albums as a solo artist and band member and has credits as a musician, arranger, p ...
- Bass (1/4), Guitar (2/5), Bass Drums (2), Violin (3), Upright Bass (5), String Arrangements (5), Synthesizer (5), Trombone (8)
* Cory McCulloch - Producer, Harmonium (5/8), Mandolin (1), Guitar (2), Bass Synthesizer (2)
* Sam Mickens - Guitar (1/2), Synthesizer (2), Percussion (2), String Arrangements (5)
* Jamie Stewart - Vocals, Guitar, Synthesizer (1/3/4/7/9/10), Beats (1/3/7), Bass (2), Percussion (9)
Additional personnel
* John Golden - Mastering
* Lorem Ipsum - Photography
* Caralee McElroy
Caralee McElroy (born December 27, 1983) is a Brooklyn-based American multi-instrumentalist who has played in the bands Xiu Xiu, XXL, and Cold Cave.
Biography
McElroy was born in Olympia, WA and was raised in Modesto, California and Seattle, Wa ...
- Photography
* Gabriel Mindel - Electronics (5), Guitar (5), Synthesizer (5)
* Sprout Guy - Viola (5/9), Violin (5/9)
* Joe Stewart - Design
* Peter Swanson - Drum Machine (5), Electronics (5), Synthesizer (5)
References
External links
Amazon.com listing
{{Authority control
Xiu Xiu albums
2004 albums
5 Rue Christine albums