Five Records To Help You Avoid Daft Punk

You gotta feel for people who don't like Daft Punk, the French duo have dominated music headlines for months with the ridiculous campaign that has surrounded their Random Access Memories album, which is released in Australia today and launched with a big listening party in Wee Waa tonight.

So here are five records you should turn to instead of Random Access Memories this weekend:

JANE BIRKIN & SERGE GAINSBOURG – Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg

What's not to love? It sounds effortlessly cool, it's French and it's probably one of the few records more likely to get you to woo a potential romantic prospect than the sassy Random Access Memories.

RAMONES – Rocket To Russia

Four good-fer-nothin' New York kids wearing leather jackets, doing drugs and playing three chord pop songs with wailing loud instruments slathered in distortion – Ramones are, and always will be, the true Daft Punks of music history. Anytime is a good time to reacquaint yourself with this 1977 classic; it is, after all, one of the finest pieces of music ever committed to wax. Probably won't get you laid.

CHIC – C'est Chic

Nile Rodgers was a huge, huge, huge part of Get Lucky, the first single from Random Access Memories. Why not trek back to 1978 where he and his band Chic made what is arguably their best album and one of the finest of the disco era, C'est Chic. You kids might be surprised by how much of it you actually enjoy.

ETIENNE DE CRÉCY – Super Discount

Fuck it, let's go back to France and the scene from which Daft Punk was born. You don't see anyone going bananas and taking over a small rural Australian town every time Etienne de Crécy releases an album, do you?

Not entirely sure how much kudos you get for knowledge of the French Touch scene (probably because this writer doesn't really have any), but if Daft Punk are going to continue to be as dominant a force as they are now then you might as well bone up on your history of the scene now. This is a pretty decent place to start.

COUNTAFITT - ???

We couldn't find any evidence of any bands actually coming from Wee Waa, but Narrabri, which is about half an hour down the road, is home to Countafitt.

They are going to be the real attraction in Wee Waa tonight – after all, not too many people have ever heard of Counterfitt, but everyone has heard Random Access Memories by now.

After the album party is over, punters are encouraged to head to the Royal Hotel where these dudes will be busting it out like there's no tomorrow. The band has a triple j Unearthed page, but unfortunately no music on it.  Can we suggest someone from Sony Music heads down to the pub, signs them up and launches their album with great fanfare at next year's Wee Waa show?