Fabulous Muscles is the third album by Xiu Xiu, released on February 17, 2004 on 5 Rue Christine. The album marked a change in the band's sound, as the album was considered to be more accessible than Xiu Xiu's previous two albums. Fabulous Muscles has received mostly positive reviews. The album was recorded in Oakland and Seattle and was produced by band member Cory McCulloch. The album's cover features frontman Jamie Stewart nuzzling a toy kitten. On recording the album, Stewart said: "I think on Fabulous Muscles we really tried to write a pop record just because... We were on a lark and wanted to see how it would turn out." The song Brian the Vampire is based on a child Stewart encountered during his time as a preschool teacher in California. 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." 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 view on soldiers serving in the Iraq war. 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. Stewart contributed the title track to a tribute CD, The Ash Gray Proclamation, for author Dennis Cooper. 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". Read more on Last.fm.