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Amy Macdonald - 'Poison Prince'

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Fraser McAlpine | 10:28 UK time, Wednesday, 14 May 2008

Amy MacdonaldIt does seem a little unfair, in this time of The Many Female Singers What Claim To Have Soul In Their Voices, that young Amy here doesn't get more support than she does. I mean her voice is as distinctive as Duffy's, as deep and dark as Adele's, she's got as perky a sense of melody as Madame Nash, and she writes and performs her own songs (that's performing as in SINGING, not, y'know, NOT SINGING, *cough*Madonna*cough*), just like the Tunst and the Melua do. And it can't be because Amy has had the support of Radio 2 and therefore is for grown-ups and not The Kids, because...well, hello? Duffy? Adele?

And if Laura Marling can be really young and write really bleak songs about dark stuff, and then sing it in a pretty voice with blank intonation and have the NME frothing at the mouth, you'd think Amy MacDonald would at the very least deserve a passing mention, right?

Right, so it's time to rectify this situation. Time to make a stand. Time to say that Amy, with her Kooks-y guitar roll and spooky keyboard noises, with her Tanita Tikaram earnestness (ask your dad, he will smile) and rollicking dourness is officially Not Bad. She is easily up there with the pantheon of Not Bad Lady Singer-Songwriters, which is just next to the pantheon of Not Bad Gentleman Singer-Songwriters, and along the way a bit from the pantheon of Not Bad Indie Bands.

These are the hordes of talented strummers, singers and wordsmiths whose every recorded note oozes quality, hard work and sweat. Whose recorded output is a result of hard-won inspiration and hours spent poring over a fretboard and a pad, honing things, shaping other things, filing sharp things until they are flat and sharpening flat things until they are pointy.

And Amy belongs there. She doesn't quite belong in any of the upper pantheons (as of yet, these things can be fluid), because they contain the people who make the music which stops time, changes nations and generally overwhelms the world. But she definitely deserves as much mild credit as any of her current Not Bad contempories.

Well done, young lady. We, the music-quite-liking peoples of the UK, salute you!

Three starsDownload: Out now
CD Released:
May 19th

(Fraser McAlpine)

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