Reissue Theory, where we focus on great albums and the reissues they could someday see, is back!  Today, we're proud to welcome Mike as he takes a look at two albums from Gary Clark's underrated pop trio Danny Wilson!

If you're a Netflix subscriber and you love old fashioned pop music, you really can't do much better than Sing Street, which was recently added to the service. Set in Ireland in the 1980s, it's a delightful coming-of-age story about a boy who escapes his youthful troubles (and gets the girl) by fibbing his way into a band. It's easily the best film I saw this year (although my plans for rapturously reminding everyone about it were dented by seeing the film the day before Prince died) and works as a beautiful love letter to the perfect pop sounds emanating from Europe during the decade.

Sing Street writer/director John Carney has spent his entire filmography bringing great songs by great songwriters to the forefront of his works. Debut film Once was built around the works of The Frames' Glen Hansard and Czech singer-songwriter Markéta Irglová, who starred in the film, and their "Falling Slowly" won an Oscar for Best Song in 2008. Follow-up Begin Again, about wayward souls in the American music business, included a stellar tune called "Lost Stars," sung by Adam Levine (better than anything his Maroon 5 has released in the past few years) and co-written by Gregg Alexander of New Radicals fame, his first songwriting credit in years. It was also nominated for Best Song at the Oscars in 2015. And Sing Street, is no exception, with the stellar original songs (including a recent Golden Globe nominee, "Drive It Like You Stole It") penned by Scottish songwriter Gary Clark.

If you're familiar with Clark, it's likely through Danny Wilson, the sophisti-pop trio he co-founded which found brief but stellar success in the U.K. with the Top 5 hit "Mary's Prayer." Clark has since gone on to record his own solo material, as well as write songs for artists like Natalie Imbruglia, Gin Wigmore, Julian Velard and others--but we at Second Disc HQ still wonder when Danny Wilson's two albums will get their due on CD. With a 30th anniversary approaching this spring, it's time to put on our thinking caps and fire up the old Reissue Theory machine!

Danny Wilson was always a bit of a rare bird: it wasn't a person, but three! Gary Clark and Ged Grimes, schoolmates in Dundee, Scotland, had moved to London and played in bands without much success in the 1980s before returning home in an attempt to put their homeland on the map. With Gary's younger brother Kit in tow, they formed under a different name entirely: Spencer Tracy. Faced with a last-minute threat of legal action from the late actor's estate after the trio had turned in their first album to Virgin Records, the Clarks and Grimes opted for the title character to Clark's father's favorite film, a Frank Sinatra vehicle named Meet Danny Wilson.

Meet Danny Wilson was the name of their first album (although an instrumental track retained the slightly amended name "Spencer-Tracey"). Part Steely Dan, part Bacharach/David, boasting production on several tracks by David Bascombe (who'd work with Depeche Mode and Tears for Fears around the same time), the album surprisingly stiffed, until lead single "Mary's Prayer" became a surprise Top 40 hit in America. By the single's third release (boasting a new mix by Paul Stavely O'Duffy), the tune hit No. 3 on the U.K. charts.

And yet, that was largely it for Danny Wilson, chart-wise. Despite more great singles like "Davy" and "A Girl I Used to Know," the band enjoyed only one more Top 40 hit in the U.K.: the folky "The Second Summer of Love," which reached No. 23. While eclectic second album Bebop Moptop (which featured two tracks written or co-written and sung by Kit Clark) reached No. 24 on the British album charts, far better than Meet Danny Wilson, that was about it for the group, which amicably split in 1991 with the release of a compilation, Sweet Danny Wilson. Gary and Kit Clark each pursued solo careers, while Grimes would play bass for Deacon Blue (and, currently, Simple Minds), with all three collaborating intermittently--though only once, publicly, under the Danny Wilson name, with a performance in Glasgow in 2014.

Despite their brief time together, they were wildly prolific, and in the era of collectible singles, boasted a lion's share of B-sides and extra tracks. A theoretical expansion of Meet Danny Wilson could boast a number of released demos, remixes (including the U.K. hit version of "Mary's Prayer"), B-sides (including a cover of David Bowie's "Kooks" and a cheeky countrified version of "Mary's Prayer," entitled "Mary's Prairie") and more. Bebop Moptop boasted a number of non-LP tracks, mostly coming from a spirited live set at London's Town & Country Club in the fall of 1989 that featured, among other tunes, a cover of ABBA's "Knowing Me, Knowing You."

A label like Cherry Pop would, with Clark's hopeful blessing, do a stellar job with the two Danny Wilson albums, and with the clock ticking 30 years since we first heard "Mary's Prayer," the time has never seemed better! Here's what it would look like if we were putting 'em together--what do you think?

Danny Wilson, Meet Danny Wilson

Disc 1: Original album (Virgin V 2419, 1987)

1. Davy
2. Aberdeen
3. Mary's Prayer
4. Lorraine Parade
5. Nothing Ever Goes to Plan
6. Broken China
7. Steamtrains to the Milky Way
8. Spencer-Tracey
9. You Remain An Angel
10. Ruby's Golden Wedding
11. A Girl I Used to Know
12. Five Friendly Aliens
13. I Won't Be Here When You Get Home

Disc 2: Demos, B-sides, mixes and more

1. Monkey's Shiny Day (Dundee Demo) (B-side to "Mary's Prayer" - Virgin VS 934, 1987)
2. Steamtrains to the Milky Way (Dundee Demo) (10" B-side - Virgin VS 934-10, 1988)
3. Broken China (Dundee Demo) (10" B-side - Virgin VS 934-10, 1988)
4. Mary's Prairie (12" B-side to "Mary's Prayer" - Virgin VS 934-12, 1987)
5. Kooks (12" B-side to "Mary's Prayer" - Virgin VS 934-12 (second pressing), 1988)
6. I Won't Forget (B-side to "Davy" - Virgin VS 965, 1987)
7. Pleasure to Pleasure (12" B-side to "Davy" - Virgin VS 965-12, 1987)
8. A Girl I Used to Know (Edit) (single A-side - Virgin VS 1011, 1988)
9. Living to Learn (B-side to "Davy" - Virgin VS 1095, 1988)
10. Mary's Prayer (Paul Stavely O'Duffy Remix) (single A-side - Virgin VS 934 (second pressing), 1988)
11. Aberdeen (The Way It Should Have Been) (12" B-side to "Davy" - Virgin VST 1095, 1988)
12. Kathleen (House Mix) (12" B-side to "Davy" - Virgin VST 1095, 1988)
13. Nothing Ever Goes to Plan (Blix Mix '86) (B-side to "Never Gonna Be the Same" - Virgin VS 1203, 1989)
14. A Girl I Used to Know (Original Version) (from first vinyl pressings)
15. Don't Know Who I Am (Live on The Scottish Soul Sound of Danny Wilson) (from Sweet Danny Wilson/Three-in-a-Bed Romp - Virgin CDVX 2669, 1991)

Danny Wilson, Bebop Moptop

Disc 1: Original album (Virgin V 2594, 1989) and B-sides

1. Imaginary Girl
2. The Second Summer of Love
3. I Can't Wait
4. If You Really Love Me (Let Me Go)
5. If Everything You Said Was True
6. Loneliness
7. I Was Wrong
8. Charlie Boy
9. Never Gonna Be the Same
10. Desert Hearts
11. Y.C. Shanty
12. Goodbye Shanty Town
13. The Ballad of Me and Shirley MacLaine
14. I'll Be Waiting (B-side to "The Second Summer of Love" - Virgin VS 1186, 1989)
15. Growing Emotional (12" B-side to "The Second Summer of Love" - Virgin VST 1186, 1989)
16. The Lonesome Road (12" B-side to "Never Gonna Be the Same" - Virgin VST 1203, 1989)
17. Get Happy (12" B-side to "Never Gonna Be the Same" - Virgin VST 1203, 1989)
18. From a Boy to a Man (from Sweet Danny Wilson - Virgin V 2669, 1991)

Disc 2: Demos, mixes and live tracks

1. The Second Summer of Love (Dundee Demo) (10" B-side to "The Second Summer of Love" - Virgin VSA 1186, 1989)
2. A Fragile World (Portastudio) (10" B-side to "Never Gonna Be the Same" - Virgin VSA 1203, 1989)
3. Jude (Portastudio) (10" B-side to "Never Gonna Be the Same" - Virgin VSA 1203, 1989)
4. If You Really Love Me (Let Me Go) (New York Mix) (single A-side - Virgin VS 1363, 1991)
5. The Second Summer of Love (Live @ Caird Hall, Dundee - 9/16/1989) (B-side to "If You Really Love Me (Let Me Go)" - Virgin VS 1363, 1991)
6. Broken China (Live @ The Town & Country Club, London - 10/1/1989) (from Sweet Danny Wilson/Three-in-a-Bed Romp - Virgin CDVX 2669, 1991)
7. Aberdeen (Live @ The Town & Country Club, London - 10/1/1989) (from Sweet Danny Wilson/Three-in-a-Bed Romp - Virgin CDVX 2669, 1991)
8. Steamtrains to the Milky Way (Live @ The Town & Country Club, London - 10/1/1989) (12" B-side to "I Can't Wait" - Virgin VST 1226, 1989)
9. Lorraine Parade (Live @ The Town & Country Club, London - 10/1/1989) (CD single B-side to "I Can't Wait" - Virgin VSCDX 1226, 1989)
10. Knowing Me, Knowing You (Live @ The Town & Country Club, London - 10/1/1989) (12" B-side to "I Can't Wait" - Virgin VST 1226, 1989)
11. I Was Wrong (Live @ The Town & Country Club, London - 10/1/1989) (from Sweet Danny Wilson/Three-in-a-Bed Romp - Virgin CDVX 2669, 1991)
12. Loneliness (Live @ The Town & Country Club, London - 10/1/1989) (from Sweet Danny Wilson/Three-in-a-Bed Romp - Virgin CDVX 2669, 1991)
13. I Can't Wait (Live @ The Town & Country Club, London - 10/1/1989) (12" B-side to "If You Really Love Me (Let Me Go)" - Virgin VST 1363, 1991)
14. Mary's Prayer (Live @ The Town & Country Club, London - 10/1/1989) (12" B-side to "If You Really Love Me (Let Me Go)" - Virgin VST 1363, 1991)