Here is a playlist of the essential 100 (or so) tunes to come out of Scotland.

To mark the end of the year this is the eighth edition of  the annual journey of the best tracks from Scotland. 

Thousands of tracks were distilled into a long list of over 220 and whittled down to this 100-or-so of the very best of 2023.  It must be said there are some crackers that never made it on this final playlist.

It is a playlist of some of  the most essential tunes of 2023, from mainstream pop to the avant-garde,  from alternative rock, dance, electronica, hip-hop, rap, indie, trap, choral, punk, post-grunge, folk and... well, as always, see for yourself.

The 100-or-so are being published over four days with Parts 3 and 4 dropping on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.  Links won't be live till the drop.

Top 100 Tunes from Scotland in 2023 Part 1 (100-76)

Top 100 Tunes from Scotland in 2023 Part 3 (50-26)​

Top 100 Tunes from Scotland in 2023 Part 4 (25-1)​

 

Here is Chapter 2.

Part 2- 75-51

=75  Supermann on da Beat & Mind23t - Ashes

Sanjeev Mann is a mid-20s content creator, writer, broadcast journalist  with a love for all things music, memes, gaming, film, and Liverpool FC, it says here. 

He has a Masters in Media and Communications (with distinction) and a degree in journalism, prides himself on producing content on a variety of relevant subjects from gaming and socialising to the legalisation of marijuana and disability rights issues.   He also produces some of the most crazed genre-bashing earworms this side of Death Grips.  This intoxicating R-rated collaboration throws metal riffs on top of hip hop beats elecro and wild rhymes.  Just. Wow.

 

=75  Young Fathers - Sink Or Swim

"You either sink or swim or do nothing," Scotland's most inspiring trio sing, in one of many standout tracks from their jubilant SAY Award-winning fourth album Heavy Heavy  It is an irresistibly tribal gospel-soul anthem that speaks to the choices we have to make in life - either to go for it or sink.

 

74  Callum Beattie  - Heart Stops Beating

The Edinburgh-raised singer-songwriter, a regular on this list, released album Vandals and this standout track has all the soaring dynamics of the likes of Arcade Fire with violins thrown in for good measure. The album is described as a chronicle of his life, love and heartbreak. 

"You have to have emotion," he says. "That's what music is - it's about making somebody feel better about their life. And it's also storytelling. They're all stories, every song."

 

73​  Becky Sikasa - hard to love

The exciting Glasgow-based neo-soul songstress made this list last year, made the SAY Award shortlist with Twelve Wooden Boxes before delivering this delightfully arranged, pared-back moody ballad, with sweeping horns and  cutting harmonies.  It might be the best thing she has done to date.

"A lot of qualities associated with adhd [attention deficit hyperactivity disorder] are often perceived as annoying, disruptive, careless," she says. "When for a lot of people the reality is exhaustion from the pressure, trying to function the way other people do, and from developing unhealthy masking or coping mechanisms, especially going undiagnosed. "Those experiences can leave a mark on your self esteem, leave you feeling anxious – which is a pretty lonely place. Really, the song is for everyone who has days when they feel hard to love for whatever reason. And hopefully the take away is that you’re not alone with that feeling.”

 

 

72 Post Coal Prom Queen - Free Radio Phobos

Like an art-pop fusion of jazz, folk and electropop comes this inventive and beautifully bewildering standout track from the Music For First Contact album by the producer-composers Lily Higham and Gordon Johnstone, who formerly made music as L-space.

 

71  Zoe Bestel - Free Man In Paris

A regular on this list who is one of the unfound great voices of not just Scotland, due to its raw, vulnerable nature goes back in time to cover a Joni Mitchell song that for some unbelievable reason has passed me by until now. 

The girl-next-door songstress originally from Dumfries and Galloway departs from some of her more downbeat and worthy issues to bring this song to life by sprinkling a hippy-folk vibe, blissful baritone ukelele, flute and some swoonsome harmonies. Now when is that third album coming?

 

70 Mapped By A Forest -  Dream

Swoon when they cry out "we're alone when you're at home" at the end of this 3.47m sparkler from this hot-off-the press Edinburgh dark wave/post punk duo which will send shivers down the spine of the hardest souls.   

A head-spinning, glorious, showstopping finale to the ear-opening debut EP from this exciting new band formed in 2023 by Sam Morris and Brian Philp who this early into their career reveal a keen ear for a killer hook and a skyscraping melody.  At the end of October there was no sign of the duo doing anything live. 

"But it's something that we are working on and hopefully will be performing out there very soon," said Sam Morris at the end of October.

 

69 Fog Bandits - Darlin

If the rising new three-piece indie-punk Glasgow combo's moniker feels like a composite of favourite indie motifs, this track transcends all that, with breast-beating early Arctic Monkeys on acid hooks, thunderous off-kilter guitars, passionate vocals and killer dynamics and melodies.   

 

68  Emily Burns - Cheating On Her

The Livingston-born singer-songwriter has clocked up over 66m plays on Spotify of piano-led ballad Is It Just Me which featured in our Top 100 in 2019.  This one managed 75,000 in less than a month but away from the clicks, this is simply an addictively cute and tender synth-pop with a familiar synth part that made me think of a slowed down Saturday Night by Whigfield. 

She says of the new single: “I wrote Cheating On Her after two of my friends ended up in a relationship born out of infidelity. I remember conversations with both of them, telling me how paranoid and insecure they felt despite loving each other.

"The song is about that feeling of unease in a relationship that was built on lies and deception. The checking one another’s phones, the flashbacks to how it all began and the worry that it might come back to bite them one day. It’s the epitome of “once a cheater, always a cheater.”

 

67 KC Lights &  Låpsley - Better Times

The Glaswegian DJ electronic producer and Merseyside-hailing singer Låpsley have combined forces to deliver a a soaring disco throwback house anthem full of summery positivity which racked up over 6m streams on Spotify alone (at the time of writing).

"The idea for Better Times manifested while I was on the train to London to meet Lapsley for a writing session, "says KC Lights. "I wanted a sound that felt warm and familiar but also new and exciting. Almost immediately, Lapsley & I knew that we had a creative connection. A few hours later, we had written the track. We just knew the nostalgic vibe and sound felt so right. For me, Better Times is about letting go of anything weighing you down in life and looking ahead optimistically."

 

66 Barry Can't Swim - Always Get Through To You

The Lothian-born producer  (real name Joshua Mannie) who spent his late teens studying at Edinburgh Napier University, working in jazz bars and fishmongers has an ear for retro beats and sounds - and that often infuses his music.  The former intern at Glasgow's SOMA Records has appeared on this list before and his debut album When Will We Land? has produced another sparkler in this summery gospel-soul infused house nugget.

 

65 North Atlantic Oscillation - Corridor

United Wire, the first release since Grind Show in 2018 for Edinburgh artist Sam Healey under this incarnation was recorded over the last two years and evolved into a rich tapestry of sometimes tender, sometime discordant, often experimental electronic arias which grows on you with every listen. This is probably the most straightforward song on the album, with a catchy synth throb and more obvious vocal melody line. But even then there is a lot of weird offbeat percussion and other wild diversions to make this something to immerse in.

 

64  Redolent - Space Cadet

The debut EP from the compelling Dundee-born Edinburgh-raised alt-synthpop five-piece hinged around brothers Danny and Robin Herbert is full of off-kilter Kraftewerk-esque synth lines, and hip hop shuffle but within a dream pop vs indie sensibility that could be filed alongside Hot Chip and Django Django. It is enticing, seductive and familiar but without being at all conventional. “

Space Cadet’s about frustrating social interactions with people that you don’t gel with; ones that maybe made you feel a bit daft and where you didn’t get what was going on, "says Robin.

 

63  Dora Lachaise & Jonni Slater - Sign on the Door

Saying you are inspired by Victorian cemeteries and Nick Cave's duets with Kylie Minogue and  PJ Harvey is dangerous - setting things up for what could be an almighty fall.  Not a bit of it though. This eerie gem, married to a dark atmosphere and vintage instruments such as dulcitone and omnichord is a memorable slice of class from the Glasgow-based duet's debut EP.  It comes from Jonni’s love of Cold War-era novels and films, telling a story of a chase with Dora playing the character of an agent of the law hunting down him.

 

62  Bee Asha -  Shy Guy

The Edinburgh rapper has released singles which explore queer identity through a Scottish/Punjabi lens. This is an unbashedly R-rated and saucy track that marries gaming nostalgia with a playful celebration of intimacy. 

 

61 The Twistettes- Selling Skin

It has felt like an eternity since Suck It! Fake It! made this list's top 20.  But sisters Jo & Nicky D'arc are back with a twistedly raw Cramps-esque psyche-pop blaster and lyrical barbs against sexual oppression with Jo shouting, what can you get from it, what can you make from it?”, while the guitars smash and the bass rumbles.  Welcome back.

 

60 OTD - OTD Bandz

Mystery Glasgow drill combo produce an irresistible two minutes and 40 seconds with soulful interludes, a skittering beat and an earworm acoustic loop that sounds influenced by Indian sitar music.

 

59  Moni Jitchell - Moni Jitchell Live at Hellfest

First of all, it isn't a live recording.  Having got that out the way, this is the final monster of a track off the stonking second EP Unreal from the Glasgow hardcore noisemonger duo and by far their most diverse and disorientating with distorted guitar riffs colliding chaotically all over the place like some crazed Future of the Left one minute, and then grinding slowly, gradually to an almost halt before...exploding the next.  Actually the last bit didn't happen.

 

58   Rudi Zygadlo - In The Midden

Doggerland, the first album in a decade from the Glasgow based multi-instrumentalist, producer, and artist took six year to create and this ear-popping single reveals a cunning contemporary collision of dance music, electronic and glam rock with all the twitchy invention of Talking Heads.

It surrounds the concept of living alongside the rubbish we produce into the world.

 

57 The Kidney Flowers - Laces

Burn Your Furniture, the cutting second full length album from the three-piece Glasgow combo continues where their stunning debut left off and the title track is a riproaring trip that distils the garagiest of alternative rock from the Pixies and The Fall to the latest post-punkers such as Idles, adds fuzzed-guitars and tops it off with the sneering primal vocals of Grant Canyon taking aim at the rise of far-right politics in the UK,

 

56 There Will Be Fireworks - Holding Back The Dark

This Glasgow five-piece combo have taken a decade to produce their third album Summer Moon and it has been worth the wait.  This standout track is a strident collision of edgy post-rock influences married to Waterboys dynamics and a U2 Joshua Tree-era ear for a rock anthem melody and dynamics.  And when Nicholas McManus bellows the title towards the end and the strings start up the tingles start.   A band that should be far more widely recognised than they are. But it might just be their own fault. 

Drummer Adam Ketterer says: " It’s anthemic and relentless and really uplifting, sometimes at odds with the lyrics. When the chorus kicks in, Dobbie and Gibs’ guitars melt your face off, but in a good way."

 

55 Ramnäs and Soft Crystals - Hey

This collaboration between Swedish producer and drummer Marcello Romero and Scots Soft Crystals's singer Matthew Morris tackles themes of depression and loneliness in a vibrant cut that marries neatly constructed dream pop with a haunting surf guitar.

 

54 The Bathers - Garlands

It is hard to believe that eight studio albums in that Chris Thomson and the Bathers now 35 years old are not better known than they are. Sirensque heralds 12 lavish new tracks supported not inconsiderably with the stirring strains of the Scottish Session Orchestra.

This four-and-a-half minute tearjerker epic has comparisons to the Blue Nile in its sophisticated melancholic delivery but it is Thomson's quivering husky vocals that really add a certain classic element to proceedings - as if possessed by Leonard Cohen.  "I kiss you once, I kiss you twice, so full of love, so full of life, hand by hand, side by side,” he concludes as a lump comes to the throat.

 

53 Soom T - Free The Man

The Glasgow-based Indo-Scot musician self-produced a sixth album moulding reggae, dub, soul and pop that amidst a barrage of treated vocals, wannabe rockers, and hip hopsters was an almighty breath of fresh air.  

This is one of a number of infectious standout tracks made that bit more special with great dollops of frantic jazzy brass, a broken bass line, urgent hi-hats and a definite UK Ska feel. One to bob to over and over and over.

The song is inspired by her great respect for activists whose aims and efforts are rooted in making society move forward with dignity and honour. The track denounces the incarceration of businessman/politician Schaeffer Cox," unjust in her eyes and tens of thousands of others globally". Cox is a self-described sovereign citizen and leader of the Fairbanks-based Alaska Peacemakers Militia. 

 

52 Calvin Harris - Desire (with  Sam Smith)

The Scots superstar DJ and producer's heady electro-pop dancefloor throb with the drops as droppy as ever is taken to new anthemic heights with the always delicious soul vocals of  singer-songwriter Sam Smith.  It marks Harris and Smith’s third collaboration together following Promises and I’m Not Here To Make Friends from Smith’s latest album Gloria.

 

=51 King Creosote - Burial Bleak

After a seven-year hiatus, folk singer-songwriter Kenny Anderson, unleashed his latest album I DES in November, and it is surely his best.  The tracks are exquisitely produced as with this slowly brooding and building gem of a track,  brought to life with sumptuous synths, organ and strings and an ear for an almighty climax. There is a tombstone on the album cover and a title that's an anagram of ‘dies'... but fear not, the song makes clear where his head is.

"I'm thinking maybe dying's just not for me, "  he croons. "You'll see how hard I cling to my life."

 

=51  Joesef  - Apt 22

When the Garthamlock lad emerged four years ago and made this list with Don't Give In you could see this white boy soulster soar to superstar status. Permanent Damage, the debut album from the 28-year-old Glasgow lives up to the hype. To many with the vocal stylings of the Scot can overdo the warbling and forget subtlety and mood.  Not so Joesef.   This stylish, strings-heavy, swoonsome, classic-sounding album track was not even released as a single.   The man can do no wrong.  Class.

 

Top 100 Tunes from Scotland in 2023 Part 1 (100-76)

Top 100 Tunes from Scotland in 2023 Part 3 (50-26)​

Top 100 Tunes from Scotland in 2023 Part 4 (25-1)​