Ice Cream is Going to Save the Day...

Let's look back to what I refer to as the golden years of my music listening career. I was young, I was bold and I certainly would never dance at a disco. If you were to hand me tracks from Girl Talk or The Knife I would scoff at you and give you an At the Drive-In record or the DFA '79 (RIP) demo. Fast-forward a few years and I can dance with the best of them. In fact, dancing to the likes of Justice or MSTRKRFT has become a well-enjoyed weekend pastime for me. I have no one else to thank but my dance-loving friends from university and a little place in Ottawa called Zaphod Beeblebrox. Don't get me wrong, bands like ATDI and DFA still top my favourite artist lists, but dance artists have become a mainstay on my ipizzle.

The electroclash/dance artist from Melbourne, Aussieland known as Muscles is the latest addition to my ever-expanding music collection. His late 2007 release Guns Babes Lemonade is an eclectic mix of pop songs and dance floor anthems, all with brilliantly laid out tongue-in-cheek sing-alongs that blur the line between laptop pop and arena chanting. On the album's stand-out track (and my personal favourite, the song that got me hooked) Ice Cream, Muscles juxtaposes club violence "he could have a knife / stab me in the gut / bleeding on the floor / shoulda kept my mouth shut" with dancing with our shirts off " i just wanna dance with my shirt off".

Bloody brilliant. Electro-pop may be on its way out but it's albums like this that will make me fondly remember the days when I was just another sweaty body in a sea of happy, sweaty people.

Muscles - Ice Cream

Muscles - Sweaty

- MF Blaz