If one were to make a list of composers that have punctuated public memory in blockbuster numbers, this list might include household names such as John Williams, Hans Zimmer, and possibly Kevin MacLeod. This last name might be unfamiliar, yet it is more than likely that his works have been heard as many times, or even more than, his other two counterparts.

Kevin MacLeod’s career is more nontraditional than Williams’ or Zimmer’s, as most of the projects that he has participated in he has not seen himself. For about two decades, MacLeod has composed over 2,000 royalty-free works, all of which he has made open for use, for free, on his website Incompetech, with the exception being a $30 fee if credit is unable to be given. Currently, he keeps a schedule of a new album release every 3 weeks.

The expansive array of music, along with its accessibility to the internet world at large made it popular amongst a wave of amateur creators coming to light with the rise of YouTube itself. The aesthetics of this wave of content creators in the late 2000s/early 2010s were largely in part dictated by the accessibility of works like MacLeod’s, as well as software and equipment. It is what has allowed iMovie, the video editing software, to shape so much of the visual language of that period in time. Not to mention the music which came embedded within iMovie’s library of easily insertable audio being used in comedy videos with millions of views to miscellaneous school projects with under a thousand. This intertwined network of shared media continues on with newer platforms such as TikTok which streamlines filming, editing, and distribution at an even more rapid pace with all three existing within the app itself. While YouTube itself prioritizes one-off amateur videos a lot less than it used to, in regards to virality, its successors are honing in on this aspect of creation and continuing this legacy of content populated by free music.

One of MacLeod’s current top sounds on TikTok is Carefree, with the top video for the audio parodying the “Draw My Life” trend popular on YouTube in the mid-2010s. The production value of these videos varied with the resources and capabilities of each creator, emphasizing the independent aspect of creation both in form and function. At the same time, the simplicity of the video: dry erase marker on whiteboard alongside voice-over, results in a collection of videos that are nearly identical to one another. The use of Carefree satirizes how frequently used stock music adds to the un-originality of the trend at large. The parody is heightened through the use of unnecessary and mundane details, like the storyteller moving house from place to place. This ironic participation in the trend becomes a commentary on the perpetual ways in which virality is sought out within pockets of the internet, relying on tropes and trends in order to gain recognition. The "identifiability" of Kevin MacLeod’s Carefree within this context exemplifies the ways in which his type of music-making is regarded as it ages across platforms and time.

The platform on which Kevin has the most impact is Youtube, with his works being used in an estimated 10 to 90 million videos. This success extends to newer platforms as well with his most successful song on TikTok, Monkeys Spinning Monkeys, being used over 23.2 million times. Following in the rankings is Sneaky Snitch at 753.7 thousand videos and Carefree at 14.8 thousand videos. All three of these have a very lighthearted, infantile feeling to them which is conducive to TikTok's comedically forward platform whose demographic largely involves the latest generation of smartphone users. This is not to say that MacLeod is creatively limited, with his work spread across a variety of genres. However, his music’s use by primarily young and amateur creators and platforms has led this clean, electronically constructed style of music to be the most indicative of his catalog. Therefore, the dominance of his overall catalog along with the insane success of a handful of songs has led MacLeod to be the primary constructor of the genre of royalty-free music at large.

While having a great amount of influence and viewership, MacLeod has never made a direct and continuous profit through others’ use of his music. MacLeod’s personal reasoning towards giving away works that are so prolifically commodified is because his goal lies within the power of music itself. The driving force of his creative endeavors is to move people, to induce emotions. Producing and distributing solely for profit brings about limitations that are counterintuitive to his goal. He chooses to succeed through the expanded viewership that free usage of music brings rather than a direct stream of profit, to the point of turning down major licensing offers, as a means to stick by this moral obligation. His fulfillment comes from the accessibility of his work, one that can be enjoyed by both listeners and creators alike.

Despite such a demand for free and accessible music, these efforts have not been without their difficulties, particularly the way in which copyright laws translated once digital mediums became more widely used. Since the advent of the MP3 file, people, like Ram Samudrala, have been advocating for its open use. Samudrala, a computational biologist and musician against intellectual property, inadvertently predicted MacLeod's success. In a 1998 interview with Billboard he said, “In the broad-band world, unsigned or unknown bands will be competing against famous people”. Samudrala’s concerns with this restricted distribution of music fall in line with MacLeod's democratic efforts but did not take into account the great amount of demand that would arise from independent creators.

The demand is what has brought Kevin’s renowned success, beginning with works that were simply discarded for old projects. At the rate at which he produces, he himself has admitted that the works themselves are not all that good. However, because of Kevin’s continuous output, expanding reach, and demand for free music, they continue to find success.

The prolific use of music like MacLeod’s, especially in a large array of independently created content, has positioned it to be indicative of its origins and in that sense, nostalgic. So as silly, cheesy, and poignantly thematic as some free internet music may be, they have become emotionally eliciting tracks, both in their intention and application. Royalty-free music has become an ingrained piece of internet culture that lives and breathes with us just like any other piece of iconic media. Whether it is a backing track for a lighthearted nail tutorial, setting the tone for an action-packed sequence, or giving ambiance to a challenge video, the presence of this work has arguably achieved a status of nostalgic value. Through the creation of sounds that are just as obscure in name as they are recognizable in melody MacLeod has not only defined our perceptions of royalty-free music but, in his prolific output, has created a generational soundtrack.