The Hot 100 2018: 60–51
Rose Leslie, Rabiya Choudhry and Frances Poet are among our favourite cultural contributors this year
Without a doubt, 2018 has been a year of incredible female activism and empowerment. From #MeToo and Time's Up to the centenary of the 1918 Representation of the People Act, which gave some women the vote, the various events of this year have renewed and reinvigorated the fight for gender equality. With this in mind, this year's Hot 100 is all about celebrating the women in Scotland that are making a sizeable splash with their many accomplishments, innovations and creative endeavours across arts and culture. In the words of Beyoncé, 'who run the world?'…
60 Frances Poet
Playwright, dramaturg, and associate artist at the Traverse, Frances Poet's 2018 script Gut took the tragic genre and used it to examine contemporary anxieties: a passionate and precise writer who pushes the potential of performance's immediacy and poetic power. (GKV)
59 Lighthouse Bookshop
The left-leaning and independent Lighthouse: Edinburgh's Radical Bookshop is the new incarnation of long-beloved Word Power Books on West Nicolson Street. Promoting free speech, it's a bookish haven for curious minds and bibliophiles alike. (LM)
58 Midas Fall
Scottish prog-rock duo Midas Fall (Elizabeth Heaton and Rowan Burn) released their third album Evaporate, played Robert Smith's Meltdown and won the Limelight award at the Progressive Music Awards. 'It's got to a point where it's constantly moving; it's been a very busy year,' admits Burn. (HN)
57 Jenny Saville
The illustrious Glasgow School of Art alumna led the pack in the third instalment of NOW at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. For those who measure things financially, in October Jenny Saville became the highest-selling living female artist when Sotheby's witnessed the sale of 'Propped', her 1992 self-portrait, for £8.25m. (BD)
56 The Spook School
A unique and vital proposition in the world of Scottish music, the Spook School explore gender, sexuality and queer issues through rousing, anthemic slabs of guitar pop. Their third album, Could it Be Different?, was a popular inclusion on the Scottish Album of the Year longlist. (CA)
55 Ribeka
One of the most hard-working young figures in Scottish electronic music, Becky Marshall is a freelance producer (including for the dance element of the Rip it Up exhibition) and an A&R for Mute Records. As Ribeka, DJ and co-founder of Glasgow's So Low night, her reputation is on the rise. (DP)
54 LAPS
Alicia Matthews (also known as a DJ under the name Sue Zuki) and sometime Golden Teacher singer Cassie Ezeji continue to be one of the most exciting live bands in Scotland. The big news for 2018, however, was Rihanna's personal selection of LAPS' track 'Who Me?' for her New York Fashion Week show. (DP)
53 Selina Cairns
Food producers don't often claim the limelight, and as cheesemaker at Errington Cheese, Cairns would rather be turning curds than winning court cases. September saw the hard-fought release of the 2016 Corra Linn, the most impressive Scottish cheese of recent times. (DR)
52 Rabiya Choudhry
With her first solo exhibition, COCO!NUTS! at Transmission in Glasgow, Rabiya Choudhry unleashed a body of work that explores the contradictions of her Scots-Pakistani heritage with wit, confessional candour and colourful largesse in paintings that burst forth with a vivid cartoon-style mix of the personal and the political. (NC)
51 Rose Leslie
Still best known as Ygritte in Game of Thrones (even marrying co-star Kit Harington in June), Leslie swapped swords and sorcery for the courtroom as associate lawyer Maia Rindell in CBS drama The Good Fight, which has already been renewed for a third season in 2019. (HN)