Who are Scotland's favourite 60 bands?

What do you want from pop music? Maybe you are after a band who can be your best mate? Or a group who will teach you how to think. Or a band who will be a cartoon version of that better band from the sixties. But what if you want something more? Something rich and strange? Something extraordinary?

Billy McKenzie is the greatest gift Scotland has given pop music. This is not up for debate. Really, only Elizabeth Fraser comes close to him. McKenzie sang like a fallen angel. Some people didn’t like it. Those people were wrong.

The three albums he made with Alan Rankine at the turn of the 1980s riff on Bowie’s example to produce music that was thrillingly alien. MacKenzie's career following the high point of Sulk and its attendant hit singles Party Fears Two and Club Country, was a matter of if onlys and false starts and in 1997 he took his own life. Scottish pop’s lost boy. But even on his misfiring 1964 album Perhaps he could sing a line like “I had a wild affair, it never lasted” and inject a novel’s worth of feeling into just a few words.

Best for: Anyone who wants to know what the best Scottish pop can aspire to.

Avoid if: You don't like singing that breaks with Ed Sheeran middling-ness.

MARMALADE

Long before the Eagles and Jackson Browne there was Marmalade, who sounded as though they’d grown up on the San Andreas fault and were weaned on tequila rather than fortified wine. Originally The Gaylords (before the sensibility shift), the band produced lovely swish harmonies, revealed on the likes of Cousin Norman and even Ob-La-Di-ob-lad-da but just as importantly they sang out loud you could be Scottish and not sound like Jimmy Shand.

Best For: Classics such as Reflections Of My Life.

Avoid if: You’re not keen on the Beatles reggae back catalogue.

ALTERED IMAGES

Post-punk-new-wave-turned-mainstream pop outfit Altered Images was fronted by the very cool Clare Grogan, famous, of course, for the film Gregory’s Girl in which she played heavy-fringed, sweet-voiced Susan, apple of Gregory’s eye (eventually). They were far from a flash in the pan, with six UK top 40 hit singles (including Happy Birthday and Don’t Talk to Me About Love, and three top 30 albums between 1981 and 1983. Popstar, film star, THAT beret – I think I speak for every teenage girl in Scotland in the 80s when I say we all wanted to be a little bit Grogan.

Best for: Infuriatingly catchy pop.

Avoid if: Infuriatingly catchy pop makes you vomit.

• Scotland's favourite 60 bands: Countdown from 30-1

PRIMAL SCREAM

If they had written nothing after Screamadelica, which remains perfect almost 30 years one, the would still get my vote. To run the country. Did you see Bobby Gillespie on This Week?

They lived as rock stars are supposed to, which is to say they lived well but unwisely, and yet continued to churn out dance and rock classics; all done with swagger, style and utter distain for just about anyone else.

XTRMNTR, released in 2000, is one of the great British albums of the millennium. With songs called Swastika Eyes and Kill All Hippies, what’s not to like. As a live act, few can touch them.

Best for: People who like honesty

Avoid if: You can’t forgive any band for ripping off riffs

HUE AND CRY

The brothers Kane did their very best to convince the world they were Scotland’s answer to Daryl Hall and John Oates back in the 1980s with their powerful Stars Crash Down album. Clutches of singles such as Looking For Linda and Remote revealed the duo from Coatbridge could write haunting, hooky melodies but if there was a glitch in their armour it was they seemed to leap all too easily over the genres, which made them harder to sell.

Best For: Strong melodies and Pat Kane’s voice, which was close to being that of a classy crooner.

Avoid if: You like your bands to enjoy being pop stars.

JOSEF K

Blazing a trail for Scottish post-punk bands in the early 1980s were Edinburgh’s super-cool Josef K, named for a character in Franz Kafka’s The Trial, fronted by the charismatic Paul Haig and driven by a lo-fi sound that blended nervy, intense guitars with a propulsive rhythm section. At their best in a live setting, they only released one album – 1981’s The Only Fun In Town, on Postcard Records – but somehow that has only burnished their glistening reputation. Along with fellow Edinburgh scenesters The Fire Engines, they remain one of Scotland’s most iconic bands.

Best for: Refuting the argument that the only good band to come out of Edinburgh were the Rollers.

Avoid if: You think Steely Dan should have spent a bit more time on their studio production.

SIMPLE MINDS

Eyeliner, goose stepping and songs which featured a single chord were all emblematic of Simple Minds early work, and in fact little changed over the years.

The Minds assumed the arrival of dance, in that they appreciated how far rock fans could travel without a chorus, and certainly never imaged a middle eight would in any way improve a song. The likes of Waterfront, however, proved so intoxicating that Jim Kerr still manages to sell us it today.

Best For: Loud, hypnotic melodies.

Avoid if: You’re trying to avoid the pop star intrusion into polemics.

FRUITS OF PASSION

It’s a darn disgrace that Fruits of Passion didn’t reach the heady heights of pop stardom in, say, the same way that Texas and Deacon Blue did around the same time. Their five singles, released in the mid-80s and collected together on their one and only self-titled album, are perfectly crafted pop classics. Vocalist Sharon Dunleavy was an 80s goddess, all spiky hair and giant earrings, soaring vocals with added heartbreak, and me and my teenage friends LOVED her for it.

Best for: Joyful 80s pop fans.

Avoid if: Pop doesn’t bring you joy.

• Scotland's favourite 60 bands: Countdown from 30-1

BELLE AND SEBASTIAN

The missing link between Glasgow faves The Pastels and every indie outfit to have come out of the city’s art school since about 2005, Belle And Sebastian can lay claim to also being one of Scotland’s most Marmite-y bands: some hate them, many others adore them. But whether you view main man Stuart Murdoch as a twee romantic or the lyrical heir to Edwyn Collins and Morrissey there’s no doubting the band’s staying power and the impact they have had on a generation of Scottish musicians.

Best for: Getting over a break-up

Avoid if: You’re allergic to duffel coats and 1960s pop-inspired earworms.

THE COMMUNARDS

Fronted by Glasgow-born falsetto Jimmy Somerville, The Communards only racked up three top 10 singles but one of them – Don’t Leave Me This Way, Somerville’s Hi-NRG take on Thelma Houston’s disco take on the Harold Melvin And The Bluenotes soul classic – hit the top spot in 1986, and both Communards albums went platinum. But more than that, as out gay men both Somerville and bandmate Richard Coles made the personal political during some of the bleakest years for the UK’s gay community: 1987 ballad For A Friend was one of the first pop songs to deal with AIDs and it wasn’t just Don’t Leave Me This Way’s soaring hook that made it so anthemic.

Best for: Family weddings, about ten minutes before last orders and just ahead of Come On Eileen.

Avoid if: You prefer your singers to be at the Barry White end of the vocal range.

Top 10: Scotland's all-time favourite albums

WET WET WET

Clydebank’s superstars appeared at the end of the 1980s claiming to be a musical collective but the reality was that hits such as Goodnight Girl and Sweet Little Mystery were written by Graeme Clark. What the band also had was the enigmatic Marti Pellow, with the broadest smile in pop hiding some of the deepest unhappiness. Part of that unhappiness emerged from the fact the band never appeared to be as cool as they’d loved to have been. Pop? Soul? Who knows.

Best For: Saturday night party songs.

Avoid If: You hate Love Is All Around. Marti certainly did.

THE BIG DISH

This band, which formed in Airdrie around 1983, had a knack of creating albums absolutely jam-packed full of brilliant songs. From the critically acclaimed Swimmer to the happy, more poppy Creeping Up on Jesus, you always knew you could stick a Big Dish cassette in the car radio and never have to waste hours trying to fast-forward and rewind it to the good bits.

Best for: Fans of polished pop.

Avoid if: You much prefer ex-frontman Steven Lindsay’s solo stuff.

THE SUPERNATURALS

One of the best things about Scotland’s music scene in 2019 is that The Supernaturals – cheerful Monkees-meets-the Boo Radleys popmasters of the late nineties and early noughties – are part of it. The band, most famous for its hit Smile, which has been used in adverts aplenty, are back and that’s great news for the legions of fans who supported them through three brilliant albums, extensive tours and an Ivor Novello award nomination. Top band to see live.

Best for: Witty lyrics and catchy tunes.

Avoid if: You think chirpy 90s indie pop bands who have broken up should stay broken up.

STEALERS WHEEL

Alas, Stealers Wheel, you were gone too soon. The self-titled debut album included Stuck in the Middle With You (described by Rolling Stone

as "the single you thought was the best Dylan record since 1966"); the 1973 follow-up, Ferguslie Park, is a classic: 12 songs by Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan, replete with gorgeous melodies and harmonies: Good Businessman, Star, Over My Head, Nothing's Gonna Change My Mind, Steamboat Row. The last album, 1975's Right or Wrong, remains under-rated, even today. Rafferty would of course have a splendid solo career, but his and Egan's songs in Stealers Wheel - Ferguslie Park in particular - are worth visiting or re-visiting.

Best For: Fans of high-quality songwriting and/or intrigued to hear what a British version of Crosby Stills Nash & Young might have sounded like.

Avoid If: You're not a fan of high-quality songwriting and/or are not intrigued to hear what a British version of CSN&Y might have sounded like.

DEACON BLUE

Have you ever been to a party in which no one, towards the end of the night, has sang Dignity? No. This has never taken place in Scotland since Raintown was released in 1987 and will continue to the end of time as we know it. Ricky Ross’s hit rate however has revealed himself to be a master muso and a very clever lyricist. And Lorraine McIntosh’s harmonies are not to be dismissed.

Best For: Whooping and hollering along to the likes of Real Gone Kid.

Avoid if: You don’t remember all the words to Dignity.

LLOYD COLE AND THE COMMOTIONS

Formed around a group of Glasgow University friends, one of whom was the titular Mr Cole, The Commotions were pretentious to a tee which is why they can lay claim to being the only Scottish band to name-check Eva Marie Saint, Arthur Lee and Norman Mailer on the same record. But they were also the authors of the catchiest British pop song of the 1980s, 1984’s Perfect Skin, and one of the decade’s best British albums – Rattlesnakes, their evergreen 1984 debut. For that reason alone they deserve to be in the pantheon of Scottish greats.

Best for: Moody cover versions – check out Tori Amos’s haunting take on the Rattlesnakes title track.

Avoid if: Right now you’re going “Eva Marie Who?"

• Scotland's favourite 60 bands: Countdown from 30-1

THE AVERAGE WHITE BAND

There aren’t many Dundee bands who have signed to Atlantic, moved to LA and topped the US album charts with a funk and soul record in the same year as Curtis Mayfield, Al Green and Bobby Womack all had albums out (1974, since you ask). But The Average White Band did all that and more – the more including being sampled by hip-hop acts like Beasties Boys and A Tribe Called Quest, and laying down one of the sharpest instrumental tracks of all time: Pick Up The Pieces, three minutes 59 seconds of stone cold funk magic.

Best for: Keeping on and on until the break of dawn.

Avoid if: Dundonian funk doesn’t rock your boat.

Paul Buchanan on Scotland's favourite album, Hats

ACDC

Forget Scotland or Australia, they are simply the greatest rock 'n' roll band there's ever been with a back catalogue that will blow up anyone's stereo. Brothers Malcolm, Angus, and George Young were born in Glasgow while original front man Bon Scott was born in Forfar. A life-sized statue of Scott has pride of place in Kirriemuir where the annual BonFest take place and 11 years ago a Scottish Parliament motion was filed ember calling for the achievements of AC/DC to be acknowledged. We should salute them.

Best for: Anyone who freaks to the sound of a electric guitar played by a dementor.

Avoid if: You love ballads and loathe innuendo.

COCTEAU TWINS

If you had to pick the one artist or band who sounded like they came from a different galaxy it would probably be this Grangemouth combo who put the 'dream' in dream pop and produced one of the greatest voices in the form of Elizabeth Fraser. As with all the best music you may not have known what it was when you first heard them. It sounded like music for druggies.

Best for: Everyone.

Avoid if: You think singing in an indecipherable language is utterly pretentious.

YOUNG FATHERS

Exquisitely crafted and experimental art pop hip hop fashioned in Edinburgh that embraces the world and is as multi-cultural sounding as Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole and Graham 'G' Hastings are as individuals.

Best for: Those who enjoy music that challenges them.

Avoid if: You don't enjoy music that challenges you.

DJANGO DJANGO

From the bedroom-produced joys of their eponymous Mercury Prize nominated 2012 debut, to the classic synth-based pop of their third album Marble Skies, this sublimely eclectic four-piece Edinburgh-formed avant-pop combo are a surfabilly thrill ride. Exuberant harmonies and killer synth hooks are the order of the day and they show no signs of letting up.

Best for: Getting you from the bar to the dancefloor.

Avoid if: You don't want to get from the bar to the dancefloor.

• Scotland's favourite 60 bands: Countdown from 30-1

RUNRIG

They transcended the Scottish Celtic rock scene with tracks such as Hearthammer, Rhythm Of My Heart and An Ubhal As Airde (The Highest Apple) – the first and only Scottish Gaelic language song to reach the UK Top 20.

The band, formed on Skye in 1973, has seen copious line-ups over the years but for many fans the distinctive voice of lead singer Donnie Munro alongside songwriting brothers Rory and Calum Macdonald are perhaps most synonymous with the sound of Runrig.

I would defy anyone not to get a tingle down the spine at hearing the live version of The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond as played at Balloch on June 22, 1991.

Best for: Pounding rhythms and rousing lyrics.

Avoid if: You lack a poetic’s soul.

IDLEWILD

If you wanted to experience a manic pop thrill play Film For The Future by Roddy Woomble and co from their still irresistible debut album Hope Is Important.

Best for: Inducing a headrush of guitar-induced sonic power if listening to Captain, Hope is Important and some of The Remote Part.

Avoid if: Driving a car (if you are me).

ORANGE JUICE

“I wear my fringe like Roger McGuinn’s …” Come on, when did Ricky Ross ever write a line as good as that? In his heyday Edwyn Collins had more fun being a pop star than anyone else born north of the border. From the beginning Orange Juice were fey and wilful and arrogant, slightly incompetent (or maybe they were just pretending to be) and full of eff-you snottiness, which is exactly what you want in your pop stars. Maybe Edwyn was too cool for school to write anything that aches the way Roddy Frame’s We Could Send Letters aches, but, man, Falling and Laughing comes close, doesn’t it?

Best for: Jangly guitars. They wrote the book on them.

Avoid if: You don't like jangly guitars.

CAMERA OBSCURA

“You say your life will be the death of you

Tell me, do you wash your hair in honeydew

And long for all of them to fall in love with you

But they never do.”

Another in a long line of smart, pop-literate Scottish bands elevated above their peers by the fact that Traceyanne Campbell could sing the UKIP manifesto and it would sound great (not that we're expecting her to do so any time soon).The tragic death of band member Carey Lander seemed to have marked the end of the band, but Campbell tweeted last month that they are back rehearsing.

Best for: Lovelorn music fans who find Belle and Sebastian a bit too Walter Softy for their tastes.

Avoid if: you need music that's injected with an excess of testosterone.

BOARDS OF CANADA

The Edinburgh post-electro maestros' Dayvan Cowboy was a regular feature on the late lamented early-hours-in-the morning 120 Minutes show on MTV2 that was devoted to leftfield music. But it wasn't until the stunning Music has The Right To Children album that the penny dropped and when it did the almost orchestral wonders of Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin's downtempo ambient structures and form made sense.

Best for: Chilling.

Avoid if: Not chilling.

MOGWAI

Stuart Braithwaite's crew pretty much define the term post rock and can mess with your head if not in the right mood. Listen to the incredible peaks-and-troughs soft-loud non-album track called My Father, My King – a 20-minute long entry point which was for a long time the best thing they had done. When your ears get attuned to their sonic power, the sheer intensity and dynamic melodies become a real rush.

Best for: Giving your undivided attention.

Avoid if: Loud guitars make your scared.

BLANCK MASS

The drone electro project from Edinburgh's Benjamin John Power, one of the founding members of F*** Buttons is one of the most exciting to emerge in this decade. His art is in his single-minded experimentation which revealed itself in his Odd Scene EP, the title track being a never-to-be repeated mash of electro drone, hardcore punk, black metal and goth that would make Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails weep.

Best for: Lovers of in-yer-face electronics

Avoid if: You find loud synths scary.

THE KLF

Look, anyone who could get Tammy Wynette to sing “They’re justified and they’re ancient. And they drive an ice cream van,” gets our vote. In their time Bill Drummond (born in South Africa, raised in Newton Stewart) and Jimmy Cauty burned £1million on a Scottish beach, took the Doctor Who theme tune to number one (under the moniker the Timelords) and made some of the greatest Acid House anthems of the age. They bowed out at the Brits in 1992 when they duetted with Extreme Noise Terror, and Drummond fired blanks from an automatic weapon at the audience. The KLF always knew the value of theatre.

Best for: Going “Wooh wooh” along with the band every time What Time is Love? Comes on the radio.

Avoid if: You have no sense of humour. Or two left feet.

THE TRASHCAN SINATRAS

Their timing was always lousy. Too late for Postcard, too early for the Postcard revival, constantly out of step with the zeitgeist (except in America who seem to get them more than their own home country does. Which is a scandal, quite frankly) All that left is a series of albums so casually bruised and gorgeous that listening to them you can’t work how something that sounds so simple can break your heart so easily. If you want proof play Weightlifting on repeat. It would make a great national anthem, by the way.

Best For: Beta-male boys and girls who know that life is hard but sometimes beautiful.

Avoid if: You are allergic to harmonies.

• Scotland's favourite 60 bands: Countdown from 30-1

What no Bay City Rollers or Hipsway, Gun or Franz Ferdinand? Tell us who we've missed off the list and why at letters@theherald.co.uk.

Compiled by Teddy Jamieson, Susan Swarbrick, Vicky Allan, Martin Williams, Barry Didcock, Russell Leadbetter, Marianne Taylor, Drew Allan, Andy Clark, Brian Beacom, Scott Wright, Neil Cameron, Ann Fotheringham, Garry Scott, and Mark Smith