Kevin MacLeod is arguably the most prolific composer you’ve never heard of – although it’s highly likely that you’ve heard his music. The Wisconsin-born musician, who has occasionally lived in New York, is a pioneer of both digital production and distribution. In essence, he gives away a lot of his music. He works through the nonprofit Creative Commons and makes his instrumental pieces available, either for a one-time fee or for free. His works make it onto YouTube and TikTok videos, in video games, in big-budget studio films (such as Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo”) and pornographic films.
“Royalty Free: The Music of Kevin MacLeod,” directed by Ryan Camarda, captures the magnitude of the subject’s performance while providing a nerve-wracking portrait of the man himself. He’s in his late forties, and he’s not quite what you might call it. He has many clear ideas on a variety of subjects, including morality in art, and his statements are sometimes surprising. At one point, he claims he wouldn’t care if his music made its way into a movie about “Nazis Killing Puppies.”
The documentary was shot and edited as an infomercial, though it wanders from track to track to such an extent that a viewer isn’t sure what it is. And while it sometimes celebrates MacLeod, there are instances where the filmmaker seems concerned about the number of instrumentalists being made unemployed by single-computer bands like MacLeod (something that has been worrying musician unions and others since even before the all-electronic band Kraftwerk created furore in the early 1970s).
MacLeod then gets into a very personal detail, about an hour and 15 minutes in: “Right now I’m treating a lot of my depression with alcohol, and it’s working.” Which completely throws an already shaky film in another orbit.
Royalty Free: Kevin MacLeod’s Music
Not judged. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV providers.