Travel by Music - Vol. 1: Scotland

One of the most magical parts of exploring a new place is finding new things to fall in love with, things from a completely different corner of the world that you can link yourself to, and discovering the parts of other cultures that are lacking in your own. It creates a connection with other places, people, and times that can only come from travel. That being said, it is hard to appreciate the details of a place you’ve never been to, and before we personally experience another country it can be easy to dismiss their culture and practices based on nothing more than the stories or rumours we’ve heard about them – and many people do just this.

I have long held the belief that it is hard to dislike a country if you can appreciate its food, language, and art. But these are not all easy to access. The culinary wonders of other countries may not be easily accessible for many due to a lack of knowledge about cultural foods and ingredients, below par cooking skills that stop experimentation in the kitchen, or a lack of opportunity to try the cuisines from different places, and learning an entirely new language is complex, difficult, and  time consuming. That leaves us with art. The art of other places, with our phones at our fingertips, is far easier to access and consume.

For me, the art form that transports me, immediately and completely, to a different country, and gives me a clear idea of the passions and things of cultural significance to the locals of a place, is music.

Every time I travel somewhere new, I spend hours beforehand listening to the music of my destination country. I like to find artists and sounds that wouldn’t usually be on my listening radar. In doing so, I have created some diverse and eclectic playlists over the years and have expanded, not just my taste in music through the discovery of artists previously unknown to me, but have fallen completely, head-over-heels in love with countries that I have never stepped foot in by doing so.

And I didn’t want to keep it to myself.

So, over the past year, I have undertaken a strange wee project but one that has brought me immense joy – I’ve called it Travel by Music.

The premise is simple: A playlist for every country in the world.

To make sure I was doing every country’s musical history and scene justice, there had to be some ground rules. They are as follows:

1. Every country gets 30 songs

2. Song choices come from a large variety of genres

3. Songs have to come from as many decades as possible

4. Artists have to be born and raised in that country

5. Some countries are harder to find music for, so for these places bands have a different rule - 80% of the original members have to be born and raised in that country – but for countries that turn out a huge number of easy-to-research bands, all of their band members have to be born and raised in that country

   a. Special note: this rule is going to piss some people off but it was put in place to hold me to a higher standard when I’m doing my research; it makes me explore lesser known bands and each country’s musical history more in-depth

   b. To give two examples of why people might get angry, Queen doesn’t appear on England’s playlist because Freddie Mercury wasn’t born or raised in England and Australia’s alternative national anthem ‘Down Under’ by Men At Work is disqualified from Australia’s playlist because guitarist Colin Hay was born and partially raised in Scotland – prepare to be well and truly pissed!

6. I try to not use an artist’s or band’s most popular songs – however, some are just too classic and I’ve given into temptation (forgive me, but I am only human)

7. I try to add at least one song in the native or indigenous languages of that country – this one seems deceptively easy and has, in some cases, proven to be tricky

And now, I am sharing the fruits of my labour with you. Each month, I will publish a playlist, one country at a time and in no particular order, until eventually each country in the world has its own wee playlist that you can take with you when you travel.

My real hope for this project is for people to expand their cultural horizons and explore the world through the realm of music, appreciating the social norms, politics, history, and ideologies of the countries that created it.

So, without further rambling, I introduce to you the first playlist of the Travel by Music project, one of my two home countries - Scotland: 

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1caXMIp7JSCYa4wNricO3Y?si=PHd-bv64StizUoyNO5WICw&pi=o3b3S00cTnmk-

I truly hope you enjoy because, quite frankly, each playlist took fucking ages to make.

Don’t forget to share with other music and travel lovers, and subscribe so you don’t miss out on the next playlist. 

Happy listening and, as always, happy travels!