2018 has proved to be another diverse and inspiring year for bands and artists from Scotland.
We had the comeback of the familiar with Glasgow synth-pop stars Chvrches went Top 20 on both sides of the Atlantic with their third album Love Is Dead, The Proclaimers returned with their first top 20 album for 11 years and Snow Patrol debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart with Wildness, their first album in seven years years.
Electronic dance music maestro Calvin Harris, without an album this year, still proved huge hit in the clubs and the pop charts, most notably with number one hit collaborations with Sam Smith on Promises and Dua Lipa with One Kiss.
Mercury Prize winning Edinburgh alternative hip hop combo Young Fathers reached the Top 30 of the album charts for the first time with their third proper album Cocoa Sugar and picked up the 2018 Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) award. Their rise to greater public recognition was revealed with a sell-out show at the 2500-capacity O2 Academy in Glasgow last month.
Mogwai releasing their first proper feature film score after last year's triumphant return with Every Country's Sun and Edinburgh art rockers Django Django notched up their second Top 20 album with their third LP Marble Skies.
It also proved a particularly fruitful year for Scottish grime, drill and hip hop which appeared inspired by the breakthrough of Paisley rapper Shogun, who became the talk of the US underground hip hop scene two years ago with his tearjerking street rap and viral video.
Here is a playlist of what I considered to be the essential 100 (or so) tunes to come out of Scotland.
This best of Scottish soundtrack for 2018 is an eclectic journey into hip hop, alternative, dance, house, electronica, indie, punk, post-grunge, post-rock, nu and old folk and often a combination of some or all.
It's a mix of the known, little known and the unknown, immediate pop anthems and challenging left-field projects.
This 100 (or so) has been whittled down from a not very shortlist of 350.
And we start with...
Part 1 - 100-76 .... with Parts 2,3 and 4, tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday
=100 blood blood - Disparities
With Glasgow electro experimentalists Machines In Heaven seemingly on a never-ending hiatus, Davey Gwynne, one of its key members has been busy with side projects and the release of the Black Tarot LP under his blood blood monicker. This is an atypical stripped down near 4m of delightful ambient piano-led weirdness.
=100 Tomorrow Syndicate - Okulomotor
A kaleidoscopic sci-fi-influenced trip with the Pet Shop Boys where "colours warp your mind" from the Glasgow DIY collective who produced their budget Future Tense "on a recording budget of £0".
99 Calum Wood - Tomintoul To Grantown-on-Spey
Edinburgh composer, singer and guitarist Calum Wood was commissioned by Visit Cairngorms to produced a soundtrack for a new tourist route called the Snow Roads, a 90 mile scenic stretch of roads through the national park. This dramatic closing track has a cinematic post rock punch mixing epic electric guitars with an infectious piano part.
98 YPSSKE - Very Rare.
Young hip-hop newcomer from Larkhall produces a fresh stylishly infectious groove, a laid back hook-laden vibe and…it's very rare.
97 The Spook School - Less Than Perfect
The Glasgow indie pop combo produce a jangling open-hearted anthem, which became the second single from their third album Could It Be Different?
96 Fatherson - Nothing To No One
Like much of the album, the Kilmarnock-formed band's song structures are far more complex than the normal indie fare. A relationship drama that appears to have a twist.
95 Betatone Distraction - Space
Standout track from the latest EP by the Glasgow-based alt-rock combo is a cunningly designed shape-shifting demon.
94 SOPHIE - Ponyboy
The Scottish-born, LA-based producer created one of the albums of the year with the subvertive alterno-dance-orientated album Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides and this is just one of many scuzz-pop highlights.
=93 Gravelle - Touch Me
Disco meets goth as Livingston newcomers Monique Maurel & Kyle MacNaughton-Wright, conjure up some exquisitely frenetic synth madness.
=93 Forest Fires - Born Screaming
Standout track from the latest EP by the Aberdeen alt-rock combo is a cunningly designed shape-shifting demon.
92 Mr TC and Lo Kindre - The Storm (Heap Ambient Trance Remix)
Glaswegian sound wizards with a six minute off-kilter trance vs acid trip. MR TC aka Thomas Lea Clarke is a resident DJ at Glasgow's Art School club.
91 Erland Cooper - Solan Goose
The Orcadian multi-instrumentalist produced a new instrumental album where each track is named after the Orcadian name of a bird common to Orkney. This, the title track, is the most captivating.
90 Calvin Harris and Sam Smith Promises (Ilyus & Barrientos Remix)
The Dumfries superstar producer DJ's chart-topping union with the golden larynx of Sam Smith is given a pounding fresh funky house makeover by the sharp Glasgow producer duo.
89 Alligator - Shadow By Your Side
Within seconds, you may think, oh no, not more Oasis wannabes. It only lasts a few seconds, mind. This is an undeniable earworm noise pop anthem from the new Glasgow garage-indie combo which notched up 100k Spotify streams in one month. And yes, it does sound like Oasis. At their best.
88 Big Miz - Call Da Cops
Glasgow producer aka Chris McFarlane, co-promoter and resident DJ at longstanding Glasgow club-night Offbeat injects his Detroit and Chicago influences and chunky grooves into a fresh house-style feel with this beguiling mash of old and new synth twists and perilous laughter loops.
=87 Zoe Bestel - Grey Skies
THE voice of Scottish nu-folk for the year is this 20-year-old songstress from Dumfries and Galloway who when barely in her teens had help with buying equipment and with music recording through the Prince's Trust.
=87 Snash - White Out
A primal thrashy and loud punk debut single from the four piece Glasgow upstarts who got together just last year.
86 Kathryn Joseph - Safe
The self-described 'luckiest little Scottish witch in the world' with one of the standouts from her wonderful second album, having won the Scottish Album of the Year Award for her debut.
85 Voodoos - Garden Ornaments
It's no surprise that Baby Strange frontman Johnny Madden was enlisted for a previous single and this buzzsaw manic pop thrill is one his band would kill for. A Glasgow band who sound like they are partying on their guitars.
84 Cheeens - Opening Up
He may have been around slightly longer than some of the new kids on the new wave of Scots drill and grime influenced hip hop - but the Aberdeen rapper nails an infectious hook laden Rated R message.
83 KT Tunstall - The Mountain
While KT Tunstall's star may not shine as brightly as when she broke through with the Eye To The Telescope album after a series of mis-steps, this strikingly soulful slow funker reveals precisely what she is capable of.
=82 Young Fathers - In My View
Award-winning Edinburgh hip-hop trio Young Fathers blow away cobwebs with icy synthesizers, foreign rhythms, soaring vocals, and surreal rap verses. All in a day's work for one of the most inventive Scottish bands around and yet another killer tune.
=82 Joseph Malik - Take A Left
A jazzy soul harmonica led strutter straight from Leith with a hip hop sensibility.
81 Us - The Stars That Arc Across The Sky
There's a hint of U2's With Or Without You contained in this dreamy synth pop anthem featuring the golden larynx of now Sweden-based Andrew Montgomery, the front man of Scots 90s indie combo Geneva.
80 Halo Tora ft Solareye - Man of Stone
This collaboration of the Glaswegian alt-prog five-piece and Stanley Odd rapper Solareye is an articulate hard-hitting spoken word ode to dealing with stress and anxiety which takes both into previously uncharted territories. Released in aid of the Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH).
79 Sega Bodega & Brooke Candy - gag reflex
An arrestingly blissed out electro weird-out from the always inventive Glasgow-raised producer who just gets better and better.
78 Sweaty Palms - Grey Existence
One of the most exciting new guitar bands in Scotland combine skuzzy garage production, filthy reverb, 'simple is good' ethics, a Mark E Smith snarl, hooks to die for and the Govanhill Children’s Choir to beef up the chorus.
77 St MARTiins No It's All Over
Scottish Alternative Music Awards nominated Dundee duo St.MARTiiNS' blend moody jazzy flicks with catchy pop hooks to create this narcotically quirky jewel.
76 Half Formed Things - February
A dramatic multi-layered dream pop anthem from Edinburgh and the first single from the forthcoming debut album To Live in the Flicker.
Top 100 Tunes from Scotland in 2018 Part 2 (75-51)
Top 100 Tunes from Scotland in 2018 Part 3 (50-26)
Top 100 Tunes from Scotland in 2018 Part 4 (25-1)
This is the Spotify playlist.
This is the YouTube playlist.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article