Amy Macdonald is a Scottish singer-songwriter. After being inspired by Travis at the T in the Park festival in 2000, she heard Travis’ song “Turn” and wanted to play it herself. She bought a Travis chord book, and started playing on her father’s guitar, teaching herself how to play at only 12 years old. Soon afterward she began composing her own songs, the first being called “The Wall”. She started playing in pubs and coffee houses around Glasgow at the age of 15.
In 2007 Macdonald released her debut album, titled This is the Life. The album sold three million copies, and reached No. 1 in the UK, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Denmark. This Is the Life reached No. 92 on the US Billboard 200. The first single from the album, “Poison Prince”, was only a limited release. The second single, “Mr Rock and Roll”, became Macdonald’s first top 40 song, charting at No. 12 in the United Kingdom. However the third single, “LA”, missed the top 40 at No. 48. The fourth and most successful single, “This is the Life”, charted at No. 28 in the UK, and was No. 1 in five other European countries. The single was awarded Platinum in Germany and Belgium and Gold in Spain and Switzerland.
Macdonald began working on her second album in 2009. She said “Some of the sounds are just amazing and we’ve managed to persuade one of my favourite artists to whack some stuff down on them, but you’ll have to wait and see.” The artist in question was Paul Weller, who contributed electric guitar on the track “Love Love” and piano and bass guitar on the track “This Pretty Face”. Titled A Curious Thing, it was released in March 2010. The album was preceded by the release of the first single from it, “Don’t Tell Me That It’s Over”, a week earlier. The single was released to UK radio in January, and Amy performed it that same day on the Simon Mayo Show on BBC Radio 2.
Macdonald’s third album, Life in a Beautiful Light, was released in June 2012. Macdonald began to write Life in a Beautiful Light after having a “lovely year off” following touring in support of A Curious Thing. Macdonald had no time to write songs on her second album as she was touring with This Is the Life. However, Macdonald said she felt that the creation of Life in a Beautiful Light was a more natural process. Two songs from Life in a Beautiful Light were begun before Macdonald’s break. “In the End” was written with Macdonald questioning herself whether being a musician was a worthwhile occupation.
Macdonald began writing songs for a new album in early 2014, 2 years following the release of her previous album. In May 2014, she performed 4 new songs live. She also sang “Leap of Faith” during the Scottish Independence referendum in September 2014. Macdonald released the new album entitled Under Stars in February 2017. A video of an acoustic version of new album track “Down by the Water” was also released. She performed live on BBC Scotland’s Hogmanay 2017 show where she debuted her upcoming single “Dream On”. Macdonald started writing songs between 2018 and 2019 and she started the recording of her fifth studio album in February 2020. After an interruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic in March, she resumed recording in June 2020. In August 2020, she released the album’s lead single “The Hudson” and the release of album The Human Demands was in October 2020.
