The Internet’s Favourite Composer

Kevin McLeod is one of those artists who you don’t know you love until someone points him out to you. And then, suddenly, he seems to be everywhere.

That’s because he is. Thanks to his consistent policy of distributing his work under a liberal Creative Commons license, which only requires you attribute him (and you’d do that anyway, wouldn’t you?), he has managed to make his work so popular that it has been used in soundtracks of literally millions of online videos, both professional and amateur. His music has also featured in Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, on web and TV series, in video games, and more.

McLeod has a wide range of styles, sometimes sounding like Hans Zimmer, others like Danny Elfman in his more orchestral pieces. He also composes techno, disco, jazz, and rock pieces, as well as incidental themes that are at home in action and horror sequences.

You can download and use McLeod’s music for free getting it from his Incompetech site, or you can pay a small fee (about USD 5,75, or EUR 4,50) and get an uncompressed set of files with all the instruments split out. This means you can rearrange the music, picking and choosing what bits sound where, isolate or silence instruments or remix separate instrument tracks into your own compositions.

McLeod will be the subject of documentary, Royalty Free – The Music of Kevin McLeod, due out next year. There is currently a crowdfunding campaign running to help finance the film. Rewards include early bird access to the film, signed posters, T-shirts, the chance to name tracks, signed sheet music, and more.

Do you create beautiful music you would like to share with more people? Join Pling and get your community going. You can also get donations to help you finance your work.

Header image: “Dusty old Piano” by Ladyheart