I don't think so, else we'd have to admit Lulu and Shakin Stevens as well.

Well, I'm not sure what you're asking really, North. If by "distinction" you mean "bands doing something new/distinct from what anyone else is doing", I think there's so few of those anywhere in any case that it's little surprise there aren't terribly many from countries with a) as tiny a population and b) very few large cities than England or America. However, if you're merely sticking to popular music, your frame of reference is probably unfairly specific - much of the traditional music and folk music of the UK which has gone on to influence many later bands is Scottish in origin, Jimmy Shand, James Scott Skinner, Jeannie Robertson etc., and likewise Wales has many traditions (mining bands, singing choruses) that are fairly unique compared to much of the musical landscape. It is worthy of note that these musicians and the traditions that influenced their work went on to form major parts of the musical landscape for the American folk revivalists (such as Pete Seeger, Dylan etc.) and even (reputedly) blues music, which have in turn gone on to spawn basically all of the popular music canon post-1950.

If you're meaning "distinction" in terms of modern bands that have enjoyed much success, then I'd say both Scotland and Wales have produced a lot of bands that compete ably with their English counterparts (especially considering the two countries have a combined population similar to that of London) in terms of both popularity and critical aclaim. Although you may not personally like them or consider that they have any merit, groups and artists such as The Associates, Annie Lennox (cf Eurythmics, one of our best pop music singers of the last 30-odd years in my view), Kirsty MacColl (always a quality artist in my view), prog-rock nobs like Marillion (OK maybe only one good song, but big in their time), Alex Harvey, Nazareth, and then modern bands that have used more folksy-rootsy influences like Deacon Blue and The Proclaimers have come from Scotland. Add in more recent revivalist bands like Franz Ferdinand etc, crappy pop bands like Simple Minds, and this is just off the top of my head - even if you may not like them there is no denying that they've had plenty of commercial and/or critical success over the years. In terms of more original or alternative groups, it's important to note that, being geogrpahically divorced from the London scene and the music industry in the North of England (around Manchester/Liverpool mainly) it's harder for less well known or commercially sounding scottish groups and musical movements to be embraced by music companies, trend-makers and labels. Groups like Sons and Daughters, Arab Strap etc etc over the last few years show there's a thriving "independent" music scene in scotland that isn't necessarily tearing up the top 40.

Equally, Wales has produced a variety of acts over the years both critically and commercially successful, especially impressive when you consider the fact that it's such a small part of Britain. If we're talking pop/rock bands, the last 15 years has produced a number (Manics, Stereophonics, The Alarm, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, Super Furry Animals, Catatonia) which have had major chart success, and though I would agree that none of these (with the exception of The Super Furry Animals) have broken much new ground or been markedly "Distinctive", they have all been critically acclaimed at one time or another and produced a variety of decent music. Wales is also the home/birthplace of one of the UK's greatest ever pop/rock musicians, and a huge influence on the course of popular music through his part as arguably the prime musical drive of the Velvet Underground, John Cale (who has gone on to produce consistently good stuff for the last 4 decades or so), who by any stretch of the imagination is surely worthy of merit.

More experimental and groundbreaking groups from Wales have included Datblygu and (in a more commercial vain) the Super Furries and Lostprophets. More recently Goldie Lookin' Chain have shown there's still room for joke acts in popular music and have been probably the most successful rap parody act I can think of, though whether you find their stuff funny or not (I think it's very hit and miss!) is probably a personal thing, though the idea of a bunch of white teenagers from a defunct mining town wearing chains and baseball caps and rapping in welsh accents is pretty odd to begin with.

Undoubtedly the biggest influences from Scotland and Wales in popular music would be from more traditional sources, although both countries have produced more than their fair share of commercial and critical successes in the pop music world, and some acts that I've mentioned have undoubtedly been both influential and responsible for what you surely must agree has been some "good" music, however you slice it. To expect Scotland and Wales to have produced as many distinctive and meritous artists as England (with it's larger population, larger cities, and centralisation of the British and even European music recording industry, greater powers of publicity AND all the major music publications, TV shows and most of the more well-known critical outlets in the UK) is probably unfair.

As far as I can tell you're really asking something pretty synonymous with "are there any bands from Scotland or Wales that I like?" in which case it's pretty hard to disagree .... But however you define "merit" or "distinction" I think you're being a little unfair.

A discussion about musical merit is always going to be subjective, but I don't think that's any reason not to have it. People like me blather on quite happily about the relative merits of beer, for instance, and while they'd respect an individual's preference for, say, Budweiser or Carlsberg, would generally agree that those beers wouldn't merit a mention as some of the world's best beers, and that they're not beers of any great distinction.

Monk - Emmasdad and I touched on the Cale thing on IRC. While it's undeniable he was from Wales and a huge and influential talent, it's equally apparent that the Velvets were 3/4 American, created by Warhol (also American of course), and that without Lou Reed's immense song writing skills and pervasive/perverse Romanticism, and the backdrop of New York to provide bohemian/degenerate subjects for his lyrics there'd have been nothing for JC to disturb with his Modernism.

I was really looking for rock/pop groups, but don't see any reason why Cale can't be included alongside Alex Harvey...one exception for each principality, thus "proving the rule" and supporting the theory?

(NB the similarities don't end there - both musicians transcended their backgrounds by using elements gleaned from Modern European musical, rather than from any of their own Welsh/Scottish, traditions. See these
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy9YdVl4fJc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXbgdj1P ... ed&search=
and compare with the unimaginative stadium rock produced by so many Scottish/Welsh bands over the years, and hopefully you'll see what I'm trying to get at).

I really can't see any of the other examples cited anywhere in this thread as being in the same "league" as either of these two, and I think that should be fairly obvious to anyone with professes an interest in music. I also seriously doubt any of these other examples to stay the course of time in any critical sense ie hardly anyone will vote for their albums in the "all-time" music polls of the future.

So that leaves us with population size to deal with. With 8 million inhabitants between them, I still contend that to have produced only 2 musicians that meet the criteria, Scotland and Wales have fallen way short of the representation they may have been expected to achieve. Scale it up - a factor of 6 will get you to England's population, and I could rattle off 12 significant/distinctive English rock musicians in as many seconds, as I;m sure many could.

(The wealth disparity is a moot point, and I don't accept it as a reason for the shortfall - much great art has come from squalor and despair, in fact many argue that these conditions are more likely to produce strong art than affluence).

John Cale isn't just about the Velvets - for me they were a VERY up-and-down band that did a lot of dross along with their better songs. First album was great but they didn't do a great deal of memorable stuff after that IMO. Anyways, Cale's done some terrific stuff since then - check out his debut solo record "Fear" (one of my favourites) or his more recent "Walking On Locusts" which had some stuff with David Byrne on it, really underrated IMO. Much of his later work is more grounded in British music (at least as much as any other British artist playing rock, an essentially American style). Also a good classical violist. He's one of my favourite all-time singers, guy has a fantastically expressive, unusual voice (and is a fine multi-instrumentalist - he played pretty much all the instruments on his early solo recordings). Big influence on a lot of more expressive/experimental bands on both sides of the Atlantic since, I think, both through the VU records and his own solo work...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPWFzeF5Aqo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84TeB_Svo4o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzzgFOLa63A (with Reed playing some backing guitar off "Songs for Drella", one of both artists' best albums I reckon)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyKJ9Q0Hbog

(The last is my favourite VU song I think, great performance of this)...

And I don't think I said anything about wealth disparity - my point was that the fact that the UK music industry is basically concentrated around London and a few cities in the North of England means that it's quite hard for groups that haven't fit in with the musical zeitgeist of the time to be recognised without moving into those cities. Even now I think it's much harder for artists on the periphery of British music culture to gain any sort of widespread recognition.

I've no doubt there are many fine and talented musicians who you or I have never heard of for this reason - of all the people in Britain who write, play and sing music, I guess maybe less than 1% of them would be in any way well-known or commercially successful (and of course the majority of them are dreadful!). I've no doubt the vast majority of that 1% would have spent much of their careers in London (especially pre-1980) and hence perhaps some of the disparity for artists who have struggled to get out of the regional scene of Scotland or Wales (even the more well known Irish artists have, in large part, moved to or embarked on large-scale marketing campaigns in London and later the USA, see U2, The Pogues, Cranberries, even the likes of the Dubliners etc). Take someone like Davy Graham, one of the finest and most interesting guitarists ever from the UK, a guy with Scottish ancestry and parents but with the fortune to be brought up in England during the burgeoning folk scene of the 60s - would anybody have heard of him if he'd been born and lived in Scotland his whole life? Perhaps, but I doubt he'd be as well known.

I also think it's a bit unfair of you to restrict it just to American-influenced music - Scottish and Welsh musicians are (and always have been) heavily involved in the European-style music scene, including what would kind of be pigeonholed into "folk", "folk-rock" and even some more experimental "world music"-y type stuff (such as a lot of what Davy Graham's been doing for the past 20-odd years). Whilst the best artists I can think of off the top of my head in this category would mostly be English (Richard Thompson, Home Service, Martin Simpson, Oysterband, Chumbawumba etc.) a great many are Scottish (runrig, Tannahill Weavers, John McCusker) , some Welsh, and Scottish/Welsh influences are pretty clear throughout this style of music, especially modern fiddle techniques (not influenced so much by the "classical" canon but by Irish and especially Scottish traditional music) and many choral techniques, which all find their way by hook or crook into popular music of the time (rock and pop).

Oh, Bert Jansch...

Dick Gaughan.....

Roddy Frame (not my cup of tea, but....)

As for the Welsh I forgot Spencer Davis and Karl Wallinger....

Catatonia (well, Cerys Matthews anyway)