Muscles is a dick.

Unless you have been laying low, hibernating and/or got too crunked out at your office Xmas party and are only now surfacing back into 'the real world' then you would know all about the very public meltdown and one-man publicity campaign of Melbourne electronic artist Muscles.

For those just catching up, here is a brief rundown of what has been happening:

October 27
Muscles releases a statement saying that he will be deleting his MySpace page. He claims he is unhappy about the creation of MySpace Music - a joint initiative between MySpace, EMI, Sony BMG, Universal, Warner and Sony ATV - stating that the deal was unfair to independent artists. At the time this went to 'press' (January 8, 2009) Muscles' MySpace was still active.

December 2
Muscles announces on his website that Modular (his record label) have cancelled his performance at Nevereverland - the label's 10th anniversary birthday celebration/festival.

December 3
Modular responds and says that Muscles is still signed to their label and they haven't cancelled his appearance at the festival.

December 4
Muscles calls bullshit on Modular's response and claims he is "quiting the biz".

December 16
Muscles plays at Meredith Music Festival. From all reports his performance was highly entertaining and with 0% public breakdown.

December 17
Muscles announces that he will be suing Modular over his Nevereverland cancellation for "breach of contract".

December 22
Muscles plays a show with Tim Rogers (yes.. the You Am I frontman) at The Corner Hotel. It is described as the best/worst gig of the year. He also officially retires (again) from "the business" and claims he will focus more on producing - starting with Tim Rogers' next solo project.

AND NOW...

Muscles has posted a NEW song up on his MySpace (which he still hasn't deleted) called Time. It's a duet with cringeworthy wanker singer-songwriter Ben Lee AND it's as terrible as you are imagining it would be. Muscial vomitron.

To add some extra sprinkles of shit on top of the shit pie Muscles has also recorded a 'special' cover of Ben Lee's current single I Love Pop Music, which you can also hear on his (yep, still) un-deleted MySpace page. Holy fuckballs!

Now, we never really loved the music of Muscles. We thought his debut was a slow walk through the land of bedroom electronica - with tiresome music layered with painfully dull vocals.

That said, this whole very very public meltdown is incredibly painful to watch and (dare I say) extremely sad. Muscles IS a talented home-grown musician who we think has the ability to create some great music BUT this whole headline grabbing fiasco is doing nothing but destroy his public image. Judging from the general response around the place (read: da internetz) it seems as though he is losing fans at a rapid rate. Soon he won't have any option BUT to quit music!

Despite his several claims of retirement it appears as though Muscles is still pushing ahead with his new album Manhood, which he claims to have almost completed. You can view all of the album teasers up his YouTube channel and keep up to date with his day-to-day antics by following him on Twitter.

** This post is courtesy of the kind folks at Polaroids of Androids