- Audio CD (May 6 2003)
- Number of Discs: 1
- Format: Enhanced
- Label: EMI Music Canada
- ASIN: B00008RV0Z
- Other Editions: Audio CD
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #108,152 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
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Product Details |
Track Listings
| 1. Hanging Around |
| 2. Back Of My Hand |
| 3. Let A Good Thing Go |
| 4. Tear In My Side |
| 5. Work To A Calm |
| 6. Lucky One |
| 7. Making Waves |
| 8. Ran For Miles |
| 9. My God |
| 10. 4.35 AM |
| 11. I Wanna Stay |
| 12. Evening Sun |
Product Description
From Amazon.com
With her lazy southern drawl and her beaten and bruised collection of broken-hearted songs, Gemma Hayes should by all rights have grown up in Backwoods, U.S.A., not Tipperary, Ireland. With its campfire laments on life, love, and escape, Hayes's debut--part brooding alt-rock, part hushed acoustic folk--is filled with deadbeat introspection. Yet, Night on My Side plays more like a set of wee-hour diary confessions and captured moments than a cathartic venting session. It's not what she says, but the passion with which she says it that makes her songs so phenomenally poignant. Aided by Mercury Rev and Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann, Hayes doesn't merely tell tales, she conjures full-blooded emotions. On "Back of My Hand," for example, the details of unrequited love are irrelevant--it's the sinking feeling that counts. And when the Radiohead-strength chorus of "Let a Good Thing Go" crashes and the speaker-tearing white noise and guitar overdrive erupt in "Lucky One," they deliver a sense of loss like no words ever could. --Dan Gennoe
Product Description
GEMMA HAYES Night On My Side (2003 US 12-track CD album - Night On My Side is the debut album from this young Irish singer / songwriter; whose influences & comparisons are clear but its the superb lyrics that truly tug the at the heartstrings.Features a different tracklisting to the UK edition and includes the tracks Let A Good Thing Go Hanging Around and Back Of My Hand plus enhanced CD video for Let A Good Thing Go. Issued in a full picture sleeve with deletion mark to spine and remains factory sealed complete with original hype sticker - the case on this issue is slightly cracked but a replacement will be sent with the item ASW83050)
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Something from last year to check out,
By alexander laurence (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Night On My Side (Audio CD)
Gemma Hayes is a very strikingly beautiful 24 year old from Tipperary, Ireland. She decided about five years ago to drop out of college and try playing music. Her family was pissed. After a few years working in a launderette, and playing in local pubs, she got some support gigs for David Gray and Beth Orton. She waited two years to sign a record deal. Hayes spent that time developing her unique vision. Record companies were looking for the next PJ Harvey. She ended up signing with a French label and recording her album with Dave Fridmann at Tarbox Studios. Hayes' early songs were acoustic guitar and voice, so there were many comparison with Joni Mitchell. People don't realize that she came of age when a lot of that folk music is not on the radar. The Cure and My Bloody Valentine seem to be better starting points. "Back of My Hand" has a bass line as if played by Peter Hook. Much of the record takes as its subject relationships and love affairs. Songs like "My God" are almost too personal, and full of life and melancholy. The sparseness is moving. Just as the big sound of "Let A Good Thing Go" shows her range. This record is split up into "day" and "night" sides: the first part has more electric guitars and walls of sound; where "night" is more folksy and gentle. "Ran For Miles" sounds like a modern country song. All good things must end though. Gemma Hayes covers a lot of ground in this debut record, and draws us in to her world.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Unpredictable, in the good way,
By Robert Graves (Thompson Station, TN USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Night On My Side (Audio CD)
I picked this record up by complete chance recently. I was buying a Grandaddy CD in Borders and Gemma Hayes was near it. It looked interesting so I scanned it in the listening station and ended up buying it.My first impression was to compare it to Shawn Colvin, but with more edge. The album seems to have two distinct halves, the first, heavier half, and the second, more acoustic half. The songs themselves aren't very commercial, and it's somewhat refreshing to just hear intimate songs performed the way the artist intended them to sound, not glossed over with the slick radio treatment that permeate similar offerings. These songs are unpredictable in the way bringing that off-color friend you have to a formal party might be - you never quite know what's going to happen next. You'll find yourself listening to a nice, acoustic guitar/vocal piece, and then suddenly you'll hear a dissonant cello creep in a half-step higher than the tonic, and then disappear as though it never happened. Very interesting stuff. "Hanging Around" is a definite highlight, offering the most radio-friendly song and production on the CD. I'm partial to the latter half of the record where the alternate tuning acoustics take over. "My God" is particularly nice. Ultimately, it's hard to pick the kind of audience this will appeal to. Shawn Colvin is a good reference point, although Hayes is not nearly as commercial. If that seems remotely appealing, then get it, and listen to it a few times. It definitely gets better with each listen, and you'll realize it's a multilayered record, offering more with every time through.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Astonishing debut,
By Stephen Doig (New Zealand) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Night on My Side (Audio CD)
Gemma Hayes has created something of genuine beauty here. Night On My Side is the kind of rock record that only comes around every so often, and I am glad I've had the opportunity to listen to this talented, inspiring artist. This is music of substance, of surging, passionate emotion, from a singer-songwriter who has the ability to evoke real feeling. Listening to this record, I can feel an almost overwhelming sense of joy bubbling up from somewhere in my brain - so intense is the musical high. Surprisingly, Night On My Side starts off in a rather unassuming fashion, with 'Day One' - which sounds like a Sheryl Crow outake, after that first tentative step though it becomes brilliant very quickly. The more rocking stuff here sounds a little like My Bloody Valentine, and coupled with Gemma Hayes' sensual voice the result is quite scintillating. 'Over and Over' is so stunning it's beyond words - it has a mesmerising loop that just transports your senses (in my case I feel like I'm floating over a Mongolian landscape). Strange, I know, but you need to hear it to believe just how powerfully these songs connect. Gemma Hayes has restored my faith in music, and reminded me why I cherish it so much above all other mediums.
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