Saturday, October 23, 2004
What, No Mero?
Danny Wilson don't warrant a mention either, while Sheena Easton is completely ignored. What are we talking about? Well, The List, Scotland's equivalent of Time Out, has just drawn up its shortlist of the 50 best Scottish bands of all time... ever! and it's inviting its readership to decide on the best. In the past we've never shyed away from going through other people's shortlists and telling you why they're entirely wrong, so, with only our incredibly poor memory and MC Strong's Great Rock/Indie Discographies to guide us, TiaPL proudly presents - in the same sort of sense that a small child proudly presents their potty during toilet training - our look at what is apparently the cream of the tartan tunesmiths. While the list is in alphabetical order, rather than any sort of merit based system, readers are advised that the quality of the bands does decrease as we get closer to the end of the alphabet.
And so, we come to the end of the list. If you wanh to vote for your favourite, you can do so by clicking here and far be it from us to suggest that you might like to make a mockery of the whole thing by voting for Mero, but that's exactly what we did. Hooray!
- Altered Images // Possibly the only group of people in the world who would consider going to the Isle of Skye on their holidays to be something to get happy about. Singer Claire Grogan now makes a career out of singing "Happy Birthday" on 80's reunion tours, doing some acting and looking quite foxy, despite her age.
- Arab Strap // All the misery of being accosted by a depressed drunk at a particularly down at heel bar, but without the alcohol to numb the pain of the joyless experience. Latest album "She won't Lerrus in, the Bitch" is available in drop-in centres, shop doorways and outside recycling banks as we speak.
- The Associates // Billy Mackenzie released some records to critical acclaim, but with little commercial success, he eventually left the industry and dedicated himself to looking after his greyhounds before tragically committing suicide shortly after signing a new record deal. Could his life story be any more indie?
- Average White Band // Not part of the "Self-Assured Naming System" scene; see The Incredible String Band and The Sensational Alex Harvey Band" for details.
- Aztec Camera // We only know one of their songs off hand, but as the track in question is "Somewhere in my Heart", one of the most fantastic songs ever written, we'll support their inclusion.
- Bay City Rollers // Probably Scotland's greatest contribution to the world of pop, we seemed to give up after this. Has any lyric managed to sum up the joy of being young and alive with a whole motorway of opportunities stretching out in front of you better than "We sang shang-a-lang and we ran with the gang doin' doo-op-dooby-doo-a"? We think not.
- Belle and Sebastian // The socially inept weegies who, if you believe the Brit Awards - and we trust them implicitly - are better than Steps. Their latest Trevor Horn produced album has found them moving closer to them, however, in an embrace of pop sense, rather than a silver outfits and dance routine style, though that could be next. "Lazy Line Painter Jane" is probably their finest moment.
- The Beta Band // Had their moments, though invariably those moments were lost amongst a load of self-indulgent twaddle.
- Big Country // Played guitars that sounded like bagpipes and failed to be an influence on any other band whatsoever, quite possibly because they played guitars that sounded like bagpipes.
- Bis // The first unsigned band to play Top of the Pops and, as a result of this massive publicity boost, they promptly failed to make any real impact on the average pop punter in the street, which was a shame as they were rather ace indeed, but at the time, screechy girl vocals weren't considered that appetising by the general public. Fortunately tastes have since changed since then, otherwise tATu would never have got as far as they did.
- The Blue Nile // Apparently their 3 albums are, respectively, "A classic set of pop elegance", "[an album of] late night sophistication and moody atmospherics" and "A classy effort". As we've never heard anything by them, we'll take their word for it.
- Boards of Canada // Showing to the world - and by world we mean a very small group people - what happens when you bugger around with the wiring of your Casio, which is always a good thing.
- Bronski Beat // We hate Bronski Beat. Not because of the music, which is good in a high-NRG stylee, but because whenever a Jimmy Somerville fronted song comes up in our pub quiz, we can never remember whether it's a solo, Communards, or Bronski Beat effort.
- Cocteau Twins // Not actually twins, but as Robin Guthrie produced lots of Lush stuff, we'll let them off.
- Deacon Blue // "Twist and Shout" was ace, but they do have to take responsibility for the televisual career of Dougie Vipond. The only way they can absolve their sin is if they take on Dougie Donnelly, of "Tillicoultry, Near Stirling" fame, as his replacement for the newly reformed version of the band.
- The Delgados // Perennial John Peel faves, but don't let this put you off, they're creators of some of the most gorgeous pieces of low-key pop that the world, or at least our record collection, has seen. We recommend you
downloadacquire legally the kids choir version of "No Danger" and don't come back until you agree with us. - Donovan // After his original "Mellow Yellow" based career faded in the seventies, Donovan struggled to make an impact on the music scene. This all changed, however, in the late eighties, when he decided to reinvent himself, changing his image from a middle-aged Glaswegian to that of a young Australian soap-actor. Re-energised, he subsequently went on to have hits with such genre defining tracks as "Two Many Broken Hearts", "Sealed With a Kiss" and "Any Dream Will Do", all the while carrying out a clandestine relationship with everyone's favourite Australian pop princess, Kylie.
- Eurythmics // Hmm. They can only really lay claim to a 50% Celtic factor, but lack of tartan-ality hasn't stopped others claiming the Scottish pound note - Rod Stewart, we're looking at you here. The Eurythmics released loads of ace singles in the eighties before splitting up, releasing various interminable solo 'works' which served mainly to get Annie Lennox a nomination for Best Female at the Brits every sodding year. They reformed in 1999 with the single "I Saved the World Today" from the album "Peace" and proved that while solo they might be rubbish, when they got back together they were just as bad as whatever spark of magic had existed between them had been extinguished long ago.
- The Exploited // Once released a single with Anti-Pasti, who are as much of a mystery to us as The Exploited are.
- The Fire Engines // Sure, it's catchy, and fair enough, everyone knows it, but is "Nee Naw Nee Naw" really good enough to push a bunch of vehicles into the top 50?
- Franz Ferdinand // Eye-liner wearing boys with floppy fringes performing angular post punk pop with an enthusiasm and excitement that's rarely seen these days, what's not to like? Other than their sniffy attitude towards other pop bands, that is.
- Goodbye, Mr Mackenzie // Presumably included because Garbage are considered too American, but they'd quite like Shirley Manson to turn up for the ceremony.
- Idlewild // Edinburgh based lads who feel that because they're released a couple of decent tunes, they can churn out album after album of dull indie guitar rock and claim that because it's a bit on the noisy side they're challenging the very heart of what modern music is all about. The cocks.
- The Incredible String Band // Part of the "Self Assured Naming Scene", see also The Sensational Alex Harvey Band.
- The Jesus and Mary Chain // They wanted to be in a band, but felt that the actual process of creating music was far to much hassle, so instead decided to go onstage, thrash about at their instruments with all the grace and skill of a particularly uncoordinated chimpanzee and then, for a big finale, have a mass brawl with the audience. This apparently shook up the music scene in 1984, which is true enough if you consider "shook up the music scene" to mean the same as "failed to crack the top 40 until 1986".
- Josef K // Influential post-punk act who spent most of their career in obscurity until a tie-up with Kellogg's led to them being the first band to inspire a breakfast cereal. They're now not only known for their music, but also for their well toned thighs and perfectly flat stomachs.
- Lonnie Donnegan // Little is known about the private life of the king of skiffle, though recently discovered documents have led historians to believe that his father was a dustman, or that he at least was known to wear a dustman's hat. Claims that he also wore 'Cor Blimey' trousers and lived in a council flat have, however, been dismissed by experts as mere speculation.
- Love & Money // We know the sum total of bugger all about these guys, but they did call their debut album "All You Need is...", so for that alone, we'll applaud them.
- Lulu // Had some hits in the sixties, now continues her career by clinging leech like onto modern day boy bands and botoxing her forehead to oblivion in the mistaken belief that it makes her look young.
- John Martyn // Was born in London, which casts considerable doubt onto his Scottish credentials, despite the fact he was raised in Glasgow from a young age. Indeed, his first album was called "London Conversation", for any true Scot, the only conversation you have about London is that of the "It's a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there" vibe.
- Frankie Miller // Best known for Caledonia, which was used in an ad for Tennants lager and is essentially the sort of thing that high-ranking SNP members reckon to be the best sort of music in the world ever, though they probably think it could be improved if the guitars sounded more like bagpipes.
- Mogwai // Do you remember the beautiful sound that Gizmo, the Mogwai from the Gremlins films, would make when he was happy and sang? These guys sound a bit like their namesake, if you substitute the word 'beautiful' with 'godawful' and 'sound' with 'racket'.
- Mull Historical Society // First album, Loss, was very ace indeed. Second album, Us, sounded very similar to the first album, only not as good. We didn't bother getting the third one.
- Nazareth // Jesus Christ.
- One Dove // One Dove mainly existed so that people writing about lovely voiced, but ultimately quite dull, singer Dot Allison can use the phrase "formerly of underrated dance act One Dove" in their articles, thus helping them fulfill their word count, although nowadays this has been superseded by the phrase "who is currently dating troubled Libertines frontman Pete Doherty".
- Orange Juice // Former frontman Edwyn Collins now spends much of his time avoiding the limelight, mainly down to problems caused by his having an eminently punchable face, instead his days are spent swimming around in the big pool containing all his profits from "A Girl Like You", just like anthropomorphic Scottish waterfowl, Scrooge McDuck.
- The Pastels // Without The Pastels, the twee Scottish indie scene would merely be the fevered imaginings of various reformed bedwetters from around the country.
- Primal Scream // All students are now legally required to have a copy of Screamadelica in their record collections, although they're not required to listen to it, which is just as well, what with it being a load of badly-dated tosh, unlike their current work, which is just tosh. "Loaded" is still quite good, mind.
- The Proclaimers // The true winners in this shortlist, go to any dodgy club in Scotland at closing time and watch what happens as "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" is played, for a brief moment, the fighting stops, the broken bottles are put down, the knifes are resheathed and all in the building will put their arms around each other, punch the air slightly out of time with the rhythm and start doing the "barumba" bit at the wrong time. Of course, once the final chord is strummed, it all kicks off again, but for one moment, that song unites everyone in Scotland. Unless you're of a different religion, that is.
- The Sensational Alex Harvey Band // Part of the "Self Assured Naming Scene" - see also The Incredible String Band. They reformed in the nineties and did a tour, only without the inclusion of a member who you would have considered to be quite vital, Alex Harvey himself.
- The Shamen // Made headlines with the controversial - in the sense that no-one other than some tabloid editors with pages to fill cared - hymn to the evil blood-boiling mind-bending drug ecstasy, Ebeneezer Goode. Other than that, they were a bit rubbish, all things considered. We could quite happily go through the rest of our lives if we knew we'd never hear "Move any Mountain" ever again.
- Simple Minds // "Don't you Forget About Me", they sang. Oh, you have? Never mind. They once soundtracked an advert encouraging you to drink more milk, but had a similar effect on the drinking habits of the public as the Shamen did on their drug-taking habits. Mind you, Simple Minds probably did have more effect on the latter.
- Snow Patrol // Umm, yes. Can we say "Obvious attempt to keep the younger section of the audience interested"?
- Rod Stewart // Wearing tartan does not make you Scottish, and quite why we'd want to claim this untalented and dire fool as one of our own beggars belief.
- Teenage Fanclub // There is absolutely no need to own more than one Teenage Fanclub record.
- Texas // Oh, for fuck's sake.
- Trashcan Sinatras // We doubt that even the bandmembers' own mothers could say with a straight face that they deserve to be in this list.
- Travis // Travis are the sort of band who not only make you embarrassed to be Scottish, but make you feel ashamed to be human, humiliated by the fact you have ears with which to hear it and finally leave you wishing the ground would swallow you up for the simple fact that you too have hands and could potentially make such ham-fisted rubbish and release it onto an unsuspecting public.
- The Vaselines // Kurt Cobain liked them, this fact alone leads us to believe that they were entirely rubbish.
- Wet Wet Wet // This band who can probably lay claim to the title of least essential band of all time. Frontman Marti Pellow found the shame of being the lead singer in such a shitty band so hard to cope with that he eventually turned to heroin to numb the pain of having to belt out "Love is All Around" for an audience of middle-aged housewives every sodding night of his life.
And so, we come to the end of the list. If you wanh to vote for your favourite, you can do so by clicking here and far be it from us to suggest that you might like to make a mockery of the whole thing by voting for Mero, but that's exactly what we did. Hooray!
