For the first time in decades, I bought a new album. And by “album”, I mean vinyl record album, LP, “big black CD”, as Jean’s nephew used to call them. And by “new” I don’t mean just mean new to me; I mean that it’s fresh off the presses, a just-released record, preordered from Amazon.

It does, however, feature a couple really old guys: Roger Daltrey, best known as singer of The Who, and Wilko Johnson, not as well-known to North American (except to those who watch Game of Thrones, I guess), but a British guitarist and songwriter, formerly of a band called Doctor Feelgood. The two have been wanting to collaborate for some time, but when Johnson was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, they decided not to put it off any longer.

I, of course, mainly wanted it because of Daltrey, but I went the LP route instead of CD or iTunes because it just seemed to have such a nice cover:

When it did arrive, in a ludicrously large box, I found the whole package to indeed be quite lovely. It has a sturdy record sleeve, with equally good vintage photos on the back. It has an insert with more photos, and full lyrics—that you don’t need a magnifying glass to read. It has a very solid record cardboard sleeve as well, and the vinyl record itself is thicker, and presumably stronger, than those that were popular back when LPs were all we had. I guess today’s LPs are more luxe products.

But what about convenience? Well, it also came with a download code, so I now also have the album in MP3 format on my iPod.

But first I played the actual LP. And my first impressions are good. It’s just straight-up, fun, rock’n’roll, and Daltrey’s voice seems to me to be very well-suited to Johnson’s songs.

“I Keep It to Myself” by Wilko Johnson and Roger Daltrey on YouTube