Amy Macdonald 'This Is The Life' album

Put Amy Macdonald on stage with a guitar in her hands, let loose her rich, bell-clear voice on a brace of superb original songs-and the self-effacing 20-year-old with the pale skin and wide blue eyes is revealed as a compelling performer possessed of formidable musical gifts.

Her Decca Universal debut album, This Is The Life, is equally impressive. On each of its eleven tracks, Amy's own acoustic guitar patterns form the foundation for the beautifully detailed arrangements created by producer Pete Wilkinson and mixed to perfection by Bob Clearmountain. The result is a seamless set of contemporary folk-flavored pop-rock with a warmly natural sound and free of hip-hop affectations. Amy's melodies are incredibly catchy-the quality that has made "Run," "This Is The Life," and "Mr. Rock & Roll" into international radio favorites-but her lyrics sometimes hint at a darker, edgier under current.When she's not topping the radio charts in the UK or selling out shows in the rest of Europe, Amy Macdonald loves getting into the holiday spirit through song.

Amy Macdonald biography
She’s humble, thoughtful, and not one for mindless chatter. She’d sooner talk about her favorite bands and songwriters, about football and films, than about herself.

But put Amy Macdonald on stage with a guitar in her hands, let loose her rich, bell-clear voice on a brace of superb original songs—and the self-effacing 20-year-old with the pale skin and wide blue eyes is revealed as a compelling performer possessed of formidable musical gifts.

Her Decca Universal debut album, This Is The Life, is equally impressive. On each of its eleven tracks, Amy’s own acoustic guitar patterns form the foundation for the beautifully detailed arrangements created by producer Pete Wilkinson and mixed to perfection by Bob Clearmountain. The result is a seamless set of contemporary folk-flavored pop-rock with a warmly natural sound and free of hip-hop affectations. Amy’s melodies are incredibly catchy—the quality that has made “Run,” “This Is The Life,” and “Mr. Rock & Roll” into international radio favorites—but her lyrics sometimes hint at a darker, edgier undercurrent.

“Footballer's Wife” ponders the devaluation of celebrity, from James Dean and Marilyn Monroe to today’s reality-show wanna-bes; “Poison Prince” is a sharp-eyed ‘look at the high-wire act of Pete Doherty (of Libertines and Babyshambles), one of Amy’s earliest and most important musical inspirations. “Youth of Today” is a challenge to older generations, firm and clear-eyed without being self-righteous—Amy’s version of “The Times They Are A-Changin’” or “My Generation.”

This Is The Life began moving up the British chart soon after its initial release in July 2007. The album reached Number One on January 13, 2008, knocking Radiohead’s In Rainbows out of the top slot. To date, This Is The Life has sold more than 700,000 copies in the UK (double platinum) and over one million worldwide, making Amy Macdonald the biggest-selling female British artist to emerge last year. Thus far, her album has reached Number One in the UK, Switzerland, Denmark and the Netherlands and cracked the Top 20 in Germany, Ireland, Austria, Belgium and Greece.

Her ascent to stardom took Amy and those around her by surprise. “There was never any of that hype,” she explained to an interviewer, “none of the ‘This is the next big thing, the album you must listen to.’ It was more word-of-mouth and natural than that. And as a music fan myself, I know what it can be like. I hate being dictated to.”

“Her huge singing voice, her melodies and her lyrics resonate with people in a way that might be uncomplicated, but gets the message across with precision,” wrote The Times of London. “And that message is sometimes subtler and more ambiguous than Macdonald’s easy-on-the-ear compositions might suggest.” The Daily Mail called This Is The Life “astonishingly mature” and “exuberant” while declaring “debut albums don’t come much better than this.”

Back in the USA, the excitement has proven contagious. In April 2008, Amy arrived in the States for debut club appearances in Boston and New York. Her 4/28 performance at Great Scott in Boston prompted The Boston Globe to hail Amy Macdonald as “a 20-year-old lass with a guitar, a strong will, thick eyeliner, and a voice that snaps you to attention…We give her a year before she's headlining the Orpheum [Theater].”

Amy’s story began August 25, 1987 when she was born in Bishopbriggs, a northern suburb of Glasgow. At age 12, while on holiday on the west coast of Scotland, she purchased her first CD, Travis’ The Man Who. Songs like “Driftwood,” “Why Does It Always Rain on Me,” and “Writing to Reach You” spoke powerfully to our adolescent heroine and inspired her to pick up an acoustic guitar that belonged to her dad. Possessed of a good natural ear and a reasonable ability to search the Internet, Amy taught herself a few chord progressions—enough to fuel her burning desire to write and play her own songs.

She was a high school freshman (“third year” in the UK system) when a community music group called Impact Arts visited her school. Amy’s talent was so promising that soon she was doing shows around Glasgow organised by the Impact team. Just a 15-year-old girl and her acoustic guitar, Amy played her original songs along with a few covers like “Everybody Hurts” by REM. She was accepted at two universities but postponed enrolment in order to concentrate on her music…and on seeing Babyshambles “God knows how many times,” as she puts it.

“I saw Pete Doherty’s first gig in Glasgow after he left the Libertines,” she recalls. “It was a great night – he did a little acoustic thing at the after-show party too, and we got into that. Then me and my pals went back to someone’s house and just sat passing the guitar ‘round, singing songs. It was a brilliant night. The next morning I wrote ‘This Is The Life’ about it. ‘Cos I realised, this is the life.”

(With its honky-tonk piano, galloping rhythm and blaring brass, “Barrowland Ballroom” is another great Macdonald rock & roll song about the thrill of rock & roll. It’s Amy’s tribute to the iconic Glasgow venue of the title and an evocation of her memories of the many great gigs she’s attended there.)

Amy recorded her earliest demos on eight-track in her bedroom and began sending them off to the labels and management companies who advertised in the back of New Musical Express. Eventually she was taken on by Melodramatic Records, a London-based production/management company run by Pete Wilkinson. He helped Amy – still not yet eighteen years old – to record better-quality versions of her songs and to secure her publishing and record deals.

In 2007, Amy Macdonald recorded This Is The Life with Pete Wilkinson producing in London and studio legend Bob Clearmountain mixing in Los Angeles. The album was released in the UK on July 30, 2007…and the rest, as they say, is pop music history.

“I’m not interested in fame or celebrity,” Amy Macdonald declares. “I just want to make music. I think a lot of people are sick and tired of people who are famous for no apparent reason, and they like somebody who has worked hard and built it up gradually without flaunting themselves or selling their soul to the devil.”

“This is what I love about what I do: the opportunity to perform to lots of people and have them sing your songs back at you. It’s the highlight at the end of the day.”

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Amy Macdonald - This Is The Life