The album reached number one in four European countries – the United Kingdom, Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland – and sold three million copies worldwide.

In 2010, she collaborated with Ray Davies on his album, See My Friends; she sang with him on a cover of the Kinks' 60s hit "Dead End Street".

Her third studio album, Life in a Beautiful Light, was released in 2012 and supplied three singles: "Slow It Down", "Pride" and "4th of July".

The lead single "The Hudson" reached number twelve in her native Scotland, whilst The Human Demands performed favourably in European album markets.

[5] Amy Elizabeth Macdonald was born on 25 August 1987 in Bishopbriggs, nearby to Glasgow, located in the central belt of Scotland.

[10][11] She started playing in pubs and coffee houses around Glasgow at the age of 15,[12] including the Brunswick Cellars on Sauchiehall Street.

[13] Macdonald sent a demo CD in response to an advertisement placed in the NME[12] by a new production company set up by songwriters Pete Wilkinson and Sarah Erasmus.

[14] Wilkinson said he was "literally aghast" at her songwriting abilities when first he heard Macdonald play the songs "This Is the Life" and "Mr Rock n Roll".

Macdonald claims that "what’s funny is even then, everyone found it bizarre that I got a record deal from sending a demo, because this was when people were being discovered on MySpace — Lily Allen, Arctic Monkeys; they were all doing it that way".

It was also the theme song of True Law (Prawo Agaty), a Polish legal drama TV series.

Also that year, she was one of a number of artists who recorded with Ray Davies on his 2010 album See My Friends, in which she sang with him on "Dead End Street".

[3] Macdonald began to write Life in a Beautiful Light after having a "lovely year off" following touring in support of A Curious Thing.

[33] The song "Left That Body Long Ago" described her grandmother's decline into Alzheimer's disease whilst "Across the Nile" is a response to the conflict of the Arab Spring.

It was produced by Pete Wilkinson and mixed by Bob Clearmountain, who previously worked on her debut album.

[35] On 2 June 2012 she sang her song "Slow It Down" with the finalist of the second season of the Polish version of The X Factor, a girl group the Chance.

She co–presented the Real Radio Breakfast show alongside Ewen Cameron in 2012 whilst regular presenter Cat Harvey was on holiday.

In the television broadcast of the event, Macdonald performs "Rhythm of My Heart" in the middle of George Square with Glaswegians, before panning to Macdonald performing the song live in Celtic Park during the opening ceremony in which she was later joined by Rod Stewart.

[39] In March 2015, Macdonald announced via Twitter she was finishing the songwriting of the album, but had not yet started recording.

She performed live on BBC Scotland's Hogmanay 2017 show where she debuted her upcoming single "Dream On".

The album includes hits, like "Mr Rock & Roll" and "This Is the Life", plus two new songs, "Woman of the World" and "Come Home" from the film Patrick.

[56] Macdonald discussed the album, and performed an acoustic version of the track "We Could Be So Much More", on BBC Radio 4's Front Row in November 2020.

In July 2021, she hosted her own radio show on BBC Radio Scotland entitled Life Tracks with Amy Macdonald where she played a selection of her favourite songs, explaining what each song meant to her and why she considered it a favourite.

[67] Macdonald revealed in 2008 that she wished to collaborate with The Killers, citing lead singer Brandon Flowers as an "absolute mesmerising performer".

Whenever my band play in Switzerland and arrive on the bus, it is a total nightmare” and she might have to leave the United Kingdom because of that and relocate to Germany if Brexit went ahead.

When asked about this, Macdonald did not speak favourably of the situation, and claimed that Jackson was "suffering from lazyitis" and not tonsillitis.

[72] In 2015, she was critical of Sandi Thom who had posted a video of herself online having a "meltdown" following BBC Radio 2's rejection of her latest single "Earthquake".

[73] Macdonald is a fan of cars, and has owned a Range Rover Vogue, an Audi R8, a Nissan GT-R and a Ferrari 458 Speciale amongst others.

"[16] The song "Leap of Faith" from her fourth studio album Under Stars was written about the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.

About the song, Macdonald claimed that "the idea of Scotland being in control of its own affairs is something that I actually never thought I'd see in my lifetime.