Amy MacDonald

It's boom time for solo female performers, particularly those out of the UK, and Amy MacDonald's entering the field at an increasingly crowded time. Little sets her apart from other go-it-alone girls like Kate Nash, Leona Lewis, Duffy and KT Tunstall, but there's not much she does that offends, either. The Scottish songwriter turns 21 just days after her debut album's American release–it's been available in Europe for some time now–and her youth is evident on the 11-song This is the Life, in terms of songwriting maturity but also in terms of brash energy.

MacDonald favors a rootsy, strummy, acoustic kind of pop. Even though she's Scottish, her singing voice can occasionally take on an Irish lilt, not too far off from that of the Cranberries' Dolores O'Riordan. The song "Let's Start a Band" is cheerily direct, and something like a more eager, wide-eyed little sister to Art Brut's "Formed a Band." Still finding her footing, MacDonald is mostly outward-looking when it comes to her lyrics, attacking what she sees as the vapid entitlement of the rich ("Footballer's Wife") or the woes of the coke-binge life of rock-and-roll media bad boys like Pete Doherty ("Poison Prince"). The whole thing's suitable, and MacDonald's throaty voice outpaces her songwriting; signs point, though, to that changing with a few more years marked off her calendar.

—Chris Hassiotis
08.20.08

The debut album from Scottish singer/songwriter Amy MacDonald, This Is the Life achieved a remarkable feat -- it entered the charts at number two. MacDonald admits that the song "Poison Prince," which received a limited release as a single, is based on the life of Babyshambles/Libertines singer Pete Doherty, but the first nationally released single "Mr. Rock & Roll" has nothing whatever to do with him. With a finger on the pulse of news items of 2007, she fills "Footballer's Wife" with observations on WAG (wives and girlfriends) culture, in which female spouses are famous for nothing much more than their celebrity partners, and uses the title track "This Is the Life" to reflect upon the lifestyle she had always envied since the early days of practicing her guitar and honing her songwriting skills. Meanwhile, "Let's Start a Band" is exactly what it looks like: a song about being successful in the fickle career of pop music, a theme that is further developed on the song "Barrowland Ballroom," named after a venue in Glasgow that many an aspiring artist wishes to play. MacDonald captures the feelings of ordinary people in the crowd wishing that something exciting would happen in their lives ("I wish I saw Bowie playing on that stage"). There is a nostalgic feel to the album, which conjures up vocal images of Kirsty MacColl and vintage coffeehouse folk singers, and even the cover art evokes the '70s with its frayed edges and warm, lived-in appearance. ~ Sharon Mawer, Rovi