Amy Macdonald - Is This What You've Been Waiting For?

by Zena Grieg

published: 17 / 8 / 2025

Amy Macdonald - Is This What You've Been Waiting For?

Label: BMG
Format: CD

Rousing ode to resilience and indestructible hope on sixth album from Glaswegian singer-songwriter Amy Macdonald

Review

Achieving international recognition in 2007 with her single ‘This Is The Life’, Glaswegian singer-songwriter Amy Macdonald has sold over twelve million records worldwide. Following up on her 2020 ‘Human Demands’ album, ‘Is This What You’ve Been Waiting For?’, her sixth album, is a vibrant collection of ten new compositions. The songs, a sonically rich mix of indie pop rock with splashes of dance, country and 80s nostalgia, have a grittier edge than her previous work, while pervading them all is a defiant current of optimism: “I want to write songs that can be an escape for people…To remember it’s not all bad. There are good things we can look forward to in ourselves and everything else”. Songs to listen out for in the collection include: the lead single, title track opener, “perfect road trip tune”; catchy ‘Trapped’ with its evocative lines about surviving a divorce and the accompanying social pressure: “Somewhere out there there’s a second chance/Finally it’s held with my own hands/… Help me break these chains around my feet/And I’ll be finally running free again”; the powerful, europop ‘Can You Hear Me?’; country-tinged ‘I’m Done (Games That You Play)’ with its insinuating rhythm and defiant lyrics about leaving a toxic situation behind: “I’m done, with the games that you play/They look right through you/As if they knew you before/… But it don’t matter any more”; emotive ‘The Hope’ with its uplifting call for resilience: “We’re still winners, baby, winning in a losing game”; infectious ‘We Survive’ with its expressive lines on vulnerability; and the melancholic closer ‘It’s All So Long Ago’, ending the album on a resonating note of nostalgia. Coming out ahead of a European tour, with its charismatic vocals and authentic lyrics, ‘Is This What You’ve Been Waiting For?’, is a rousing ode to resilience and indestructible hope.

Track Listing:-

1 Is This What You've Been Waiting For?
2 Trapped
3 Can You Hear Me?
4 I'm Done (Games That You Play)
5 The Hope
6 Forward
7 We Survive
8 One More Shot
9 Physical
10 It's All So Long Ago