High School Film Festival
| High School Film Festival | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Album by Hayden McNulty | ||||
| 📅 Released | 2020/03/17 | |||
| ⏳ Length | 31:30 | |||
| Language | English | |||
| 🤑 Producer | Hayden McNulty | |||
| Hayden McNulty chronology | ||||
| ||||
Buy this album High School Film Festival or listen to it on amazon
High School Film Festival is the second studio album by singer-songwriter Hayden McNulty, released March 2020.
Background
For High School Film Festival, McNulty hosted an album cover competition. He uploaded a photo of him and a plastic life-sized skeleton, and asked his fans to recreate the image by drawing. The top submission would be the album cover and would win $50. It is unknown who submitted the winning entry that appears as the cover.
In December 2019, McNulty founded his own Discord server. Before being shut down for unannounced reasons before the end of the month, McNulty posted two demos. Those demos were early versions of "The Cops" and "A Thief Encountering a Hazard", which would later become the opening track and closing track, respectively, of High School Film Festival.
The album came after the sudden release of two songs, "Aries Tattoo" and "Headhunted (2018/08/06)", on March 5, 2020 on his bandcamp.[1] Both songs would later appear on High School Film Festival, released later the same month.[2]
Composition
High School Film Festival is notable for having an extremely different sound than his debut, Modern Muskokan Poet. Modern Muskokan Poet had a much more indie, acoustic, and melancholic sound, where High School Film Festival is a quicker, electric-guitar driven, alternative rock album.
The track "Headhunted (2018/08/06)" was written about his former MineCraft Awesome Parodys project and the creation and aftermath of Modern Muskokan Poet.[3] The date in the title references the date McNulty had a conversation with a friend who inspired him to pursue writing original songs.[3] Talking about the track "Aries Tattoo", McNulty had said he "...wrote this after I went to a party for the first time. All the high school movies lied to me."[4]
On McNulty's demo EP "You Can't Save Them, They Have To Save Themselves", released on May 5 the same year on his bandcamp, he includes demos and stories behind three High School Film Festival tracks.[5] Two of these demos were the Discord demos of "The Cops" and "A Thief Encountering a Hazard", with the other one being a 2019 version of "Sting/Stung". This version of "Sting/Stung" was 2:11 longer than the version released on the album and featured a chorus and a guitar solo.[6] On this release, McNulty revealed that "Sting/Stung" was written about the state of Ontario's education system, strikes, and the protests that followed.[6] McNulty also shares insight on "A Thief Encountering a Hazard", telling "almost everybody I showed this to told me the vocals had too many effects on them but for some reason I just loved that about this. It was so calm, and echoey and it sounded like I was singing it in a waterfall".[7]
Also on the EP were three rejected songs for High School Film Festival, entitled "Mental Picture Soundtrack", "Stones", and "Antimidas Touch".[5]
Recording
Recording of High School Film Festival took place during early 2020. All songs were recorded and produced in McNulty's bedroom studio.
On McNulty's EP "You Can't Save Them, They Have To Save Themselves", he discusses the recording of the opening track "The Cops". Here, he says: "When it came time to record, produce, and release it for the new album I didn't feel that same magic I did when I was making early versions of it. It actually took me a couple of tries to get right. I could never find the right guitar sound...the problem with recording and producing all your albums with a single $200 machine is that you're very limited in what you can do...I could never get any of my instruments to sound the way I wanted them to sound."[8]
Track listing
All songs listed are written, performed, and produced by Hayden McNulty.
- The Cops (2:52)
- I Will Not Give Up Today (2:19)
- Prison Cell (3:19)
- Headhunted (2018/08/06) (6:35)
- Sting/Stung (2:33)
- Aries Tattoo (2:40)
- Boring Dystopia (2:42)
- Headhunting (1:02)
- A Thief Encountering a Hazard (7:28)
Reception
Reviewing website "rateyourmusic.com" has High School Film Festival at an average rating of 3.4/5 from 17 compiled ratings, indicating generally favourable reviews.[9] Writing on rateyourmusic.com, reviewer Geoff Korsempa remarks that the album is "...an improvement from his last...a more enjoyable listen as a whole, showcasing growth and improvement and a total 180 in tone."[10] High School Film Festival remains McNulty's most critically acclaimed album.
References
- ↑ https://haydenmcnulty.bandcamp.com/album/two-songs-i-think-are-pretty-good
- ↑ https://haydenmcnulty.bandcamp.com/album/high-school-film-festival
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 https://haydenmcnulty.bandcamp.com/track/headhunted-2018-08-06
- ↑ https://haydenmcnulty.bandcamp.com/track/aries-tattoo-2
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 https://haydenmcnulty.bandcamp.com/album/you-cant-save-them-they-have-to-save-themselves
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 https://haydenmcnulty.bandcamp.com/track/sting-stung-2019-version
- ↑ https://haydenmcnulty.bandcamp.com/track/a-thief-encountering-a-hazard-2019-version
- ↑ https://haydenmcnulty.bandcamp.com/track/the-cops-2019-version
- ↑ https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/hayden-mcnulty/high-school-film-festival/
- ↑ https://rateyourmusic.com/music-review/geoffkors/hayden-mcnulty/high-school-film-festival/126410616
