Kevin MacLeod is an astonishingly productive composer whose music turns up in everything from drag-and-drop collections of free music to every other Minecraft video on YouTube to commercial video games and Hollywood blockbusters.
His output, thousands of tracks, hasn't made him a famous rock star, but it has an effect both overwhelming and beautifully insidious. It struck me what he'd achieved when I noticed how many daylong music compilations—the kind that have hundreds of millions of views—feature his work. He's not 50 years old, but is surely the living composer most consistently found alongside Bach, Mozart and Beethoven in the places where people actually listen to music.
A new documentary about his work, titled Royalty Free: The Music of Kevin MacLeod, yet contains the quote: "I beat my slaves to his rhythms".
The trailer is above; below is an excerpt from The Pop Break's review of it.
Another interesting topic the film explores is the battle between real life orchestral performers vs. synthetic orchestral composers. With today's technology, for a fraction of the cost, one person can create nearly the same sounds as what used to take 20 different people. So, the real question is: will live orchestras die out? Maybe. However, as one of the film's interviewees points out, orchestras are many people coming together to reach one goal. So, you hear their different "voices" in the recording, whereas a composer is only one person, who produces sound from that same brain each time. So, for those keen enough to recognize it, there is a noticeable difference. And those who appreciate the live orchestra will likely still look to hire them over one single composer.
