I feel like the randometer threw up Danny Wilson’s debut album only yesterday. It was May 2019. That was effectively ‘yesterday’ given the strange old year we’ve just had, but I think this feeling of familiarity is due to two things: they wrote really well-crafted classic songs, and they were the songs of my youth and as a result, even without realising, are part of my marrow and sinew. I found myself singing along heartily to this 1992 compilation, a post-band split retrospective of their two released albums: Meet Danny Wilson and 1989’s Bebop Moptop which contains their jangly late 60s pastiche hit Second Summer Of Love. Aside from this and their other big hit, for which they’re best known, Mary’s Prayer, this album is perfect display of Gary Clark’s songwriting talents and of the threesome’s wonderful mix of melodious jazzy pop. Since my previous review focused on their debut, I’ll now focus on the tracks on this comp from their second album: Never Gonna Be The Same, the opening track, is an upbeat break-up song; If You Really Love Me (Let Me Go) is an achingly downbeat break-up song; and The Ballad of Me And Shirley Maclaine is an utterly joyous celebration of the first flush of love. The two additional non-album tracks Pleasure To Pleasure and From A Boy To A Man are by no means filler. They’re gorgeous and lean heavily into the jazz side of things. This seems to have been quite a thing for late 80s/early 90s Scottish bands. The Blue Nile (more so) Deacon Blue (less so) see also jazzy pop from Hue & Cry, Goodbye Mr Mackenzie. I’m sure there’s a socio-economic explanation for this somewhere. But for now, just lie back and listen to the music. #dannywilsonband #marysprayer #secondsummeroflove #scottishpop #indiepop #compilationalbum #vinyl #recordcollection #nowplaying #nowlistening #randomrecordreview https://www.instagram.com/p/CMABngfsyU4/?igshid=pui1zkiophh6
