Where Were You When Daft Punk Ram-Rolled The World?

Do you remember where you when when the last Daft Punk studio album dropped? Of course you don't, because Human After All was offered up to the world with exactly the amount of fanfare it warranted - i.e., none.

I actually do remember when it came out. It was some time in 2005, just as I was about to hit the road for the ill-fated tour that sounded the death knell of my indie band Delpino, that I fished a cardboard sleeve bearing the Daft Punk logo on a static-filled television screen out of my pigeonhole at Time Off HQ [Kris Swales was a long-time contributor for Brisbane's Time Off magazine, published by Street Press Australia].

Everyone was a little underwhelmed when I dropped Robot Rock in an impromptu DJ set after one of our gigs, at a Surry Hills warehouse, alongside the 45 of We Didn't Start The Fire that I'd picked up at a Redfern op shop earlier that day. One of those records is still in my collection, and it ain't printed on a shiny silver disc.

Unless you've been buried somewhere under a rock and deep in a K-hole over the past, I don't know, what feels like several millennia of build-up, chances are you'll always remember where you were when Random Access Memories dropped. Or at least you will remember it, until all of these years of substance abuse finally catch up with you and dementia sets in. In which case I'll see you at the Old Gurners' Home - that'll be me in the corner, the surly old jerk hiding behind his finger chanting "I'm in-vis-a-ble".

Giving the collection of loops that comprises Human After All another run now as it deserves to be enjoyed - via 30 second-long iTunes samples, befitting the six weeks of alleged effort that went into making it - you have to admire how skilfully Daft Punk have erased it from the collective consciousness. Hell, if I'd had a gigantic flashing pyramid to distract the women in my life every time I've disappointed them, chances are I wouldn't be alone in a Venice Beach bedroom, in the dark, writing this take-down piece on demand.

The road to redemption has been signposted by other memorable moments, notably their cameo behind the decks in TRON: Legacy. Because when you think about it, it's perfectly logical for your software and data to want to boogie down under a disco ball once you've switched off your workstation for the night, so why the fuck wouldn't Daft Punk be the DJs inside the game grid? Granted, they're robots rather than computer programs, but life doesn't make sense so why should the tentpole motion picture event of the summer?

Briefly removing my cynicism-coloured glasses for a moment, it's easy to see why the fankids are fapping selfishly away/foaming at the gash about Random Access Memories. It's not just an album release, but a 'generation defining event'. There may even be a zeitgeist being captured. Time will tell.

I went through a similar experience in 1999, when after an interminable wait we were finally presented with a long overdue comeback from a legend of the game. It was a film called The Phantom Menace, arriving on such a wave of hype that you better believe I was at the first session on opening day, and I walked out of that cinema convinced it was the greatest thing I'd ever witnessed.

Then I saw it again, and something didn't quite feel right, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. And with each passing viewing it becomes more and more turgid, to the point where it's hard to believe a sensible young man like myself ever got caught up in the hype in the first place. (I blame being suckled at the golden bikini-encased teat of Princess Leia, so to speak.)

RAM is most certainly no TPM. Nile Rodgers > Jar Jar Binks, for starters, and it's only taken them eight years to fuck this up instead of sixteen. It's essentially a variation on the classic bait-and-switch. Lure the consumer in with the promise of something game changing; deliver them something kinda good, yet ultimately kinda naff. Rickrolling, to borrow the Internet vernacular, on a monumental scale.

Still, the yacht-owning, coke-snorting, popped collar-wearing millionaires of this world deserve a soundtrack to their lives as much as anyone, so I'm stoked for them that Random Access Memories has stepped up to provide the background noise while they and their rich buddies swan about the deck like douchebags.

Giorgio By Moroder is a fucking bomb tune though, and almost enough to wash the foul stench of Human After All from my ears forever. Almost.