Today we take a break from reviewing films in the Bond series, right in the break between the Connery and Moore eras.
One of the things most instantly recognizable about Bond is its trademark theme songs which play over the opening credit sequence. Several of them have been nominated for Academy Awards and been popular, receiving lots of radio airplay and placement on the charts. Nothing hit me that “Skyfall comes out in less than a month” more than hearing Adele sing Skyfall on the radio Monday morning as I drove into work.
So before we begin, let me start with that. For the purposes of this list, I’ve left Adele off. Why? First, because it’s easily and by far my #1 favorite ever. But I think it’s premature to crown it simply because we’ve only heard it in the last two weeks and I first heard “Live and Let Die” or “A View to a Kill” going thirty or so years ago. Also, I’ve been heavily biased towards Adele ever since the rumors started swirling that she was doing the Bond theme. And I don’t want to make the same mistake I did in 1999 by proclaiming Garbage as the greatest Bond theme of all time. Time has settled my opinion somewhat.
So, here are my top 10 and bottom 5 Bond themes. If it isn’t on here, it neither inspires love nor revulsion on my part. It is merely ho-hum. (Sorry, A-ha, Gladys Knight, or theme from Moonraker. Just be glad you didn’t make it on the bottom 5)
Bottom 5.
5. Sheena Easton – For Your Eyes Only. Ironically, this is one of the most commercially successful of all the Bond songs. I just think it’s crap. At the same time as being boring, it’s also evocative of much worse songs, like Easton’s craptastic “My Baby Takes the Morning Train” which I can’t help but think of when I hear this. Bleh.
4. Lulu – The Man With the Golden Gun. WTF is this? Seriously. Who thought this uptempo teenybopper crap was a good idea? At least, unlike the top 4 songs, it vaguely sounds like “secret agent music” from a bad 60’s movie. Oh, wait. . .it IS.
3. Jack White and Alicia Keys – Another Way to Die. What do you get when you take two incredibly talented musicians and try to force them to fart out a movie theme on a deadline? Just boring and half-baked. Sounds like a commentary on Quantum of Solace itself, and it is. There’s nothing here to really like or that screams Bond. It just sounds like “Generic Jack White Song #5”. And why have generic Jack White when there is so much GOOD Jack White?
2. Rita Coolidge – All Time High. Oh my blog. The theme from Octopussy. Like the #1 song, my dislike of the song mirrors my antipathy for the film itself. Could this be more nondescript and boring? Not even a reference to the film really. Absolutely lame. And an all time low, except for. . .
1. Die Another Day – Madonna. Spoiler Alert: This is my most hated Bond movie as well. And the theme song, and Madonna’s stupid, stupid cameo are part of the reason why. There is nothing about this piece of garbage pop song that has anything to do with Bond. Nothing fits his style. And it’s just a terrible, awful song. OH GAWD– AUTOTUNE?!?!?! YOU’RE F@#$ING KIDDING ME?!?!?! I created a Spotify playlist to listen to on repeat as I was evaluating this list and I never could make it past a minute in. Torturous. Just awful.
Top 10
10. Chris Cornell – You Know My Name Chris Cornell once wrote one of the greatest movie theme songs of all time. Unfortunately, that was “Seasons” on the Singles soundtrack. Coincidentally, he also wrote one of the most inspid and uninspired movie theme songs of all time, completely unworthy of the film it was in. That song was “Live to Rise” from The Avengers. Somewhere between those two is this. This song was important because it showed just how far they were going to reboot the Bond franchise, taking a chance with a real rocker of a theme. It doesn’t really scream “Bond theme” and yet it incorporates important motifs from the film’s score. So, kudos. I didn’t hate it.
“>httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD0uP25yxl8
9. Paul McCartney – Live and Let Die If I were going to make a list of my favorite songs by Paul McCartney, this would not be in the Top 10. Probably not the top 20. If I were going to make a list of my favorite Guns n Roses songs, the much better remake would probably not be in the Top 10. This song is ok, but it’s far more style than substance. It’s like the Pop Tarts of Bond themes. I don’t dislike it. It’s just not the masterpiece some people think it is. Now I’m going to go listen to “Ram”, “Flowers in the Dirt” and “Tug of War” to wash the taste of Wings out of my mouth and remember how good McCartney can be.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7wSQ0rvdig
8. Carly Simon – Nobody Does It Better. The rare occasion where the song itself eclipses the film it’s from. While The Spy Who Loved Me was a pretty pedestrian film, this song somehow managed to create a new catchphrase around Bond, and one which is now cliche to repeat every time a new film comes out. And while I generally don’t like the “slow” Bond themes, this one somehow works as a ballad. And there’s this cover version Radiohead performed in concert.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNA7DcVppEs
7. Nancy Sinatra – You Only Live Twice There is something about the motif from the YOLT that is the catchiest of earworms, and once it’s in there, you can’t get it out. Considering its longevity, including as a sample in Robbie Williams 1999 hit “Millenium,” this ranks up there in terms of classics in my mind. For weeks since I watched You Only Live Twice, I’ve been going around whistling this. Curse you, Nancy Sinatra and John Barry!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcIl_6amBvU
6. The Theme from Dr. No Otherwise just known as The James Bond Theme, we can’t really talk about top Bond themes without pointing out one of the most inconic and influential film scores of film history. And, luckily for us, while watching Dr. No you get plenty of this, in case you forgot during this somewhat plodding film that you were watching James Bond. And now no Bond movie would be complete without this showing up at least once.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6YTbp9P-gA
5. Garbage – The World is Not Enough I love Garbage. Maybe that gives me bad taste that I admit to liking Garbage, but I do. And this is, in my opinion, one of their better tunes. Shirley Manson can vamp with the best of them, and this song just sounds like a Bond theme. It also incorporate some of the more interesting bits from the film, and of course “The World is Not Enough” is also revealed in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service to be the Bond family motto.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPxGhCzPI-4
4. Duran Duran – A View to a Kill Admission: this is one of the Bond films I have never seen all the way through– something I will soon remedy with our 30 Days of Bond excercise. I’ve seen the opening sequence where “Roger Moore invents snowboarding” (bs, I say!) and the title sequence featuring this song and that’s it. I own this song, not on a movie soundtrack, but part of a Duran Duran greatest hits collection. And it is. This song is great and it just screams both “Spy movie!” and “80’s new wave band!” Two of my all time weaknesses. And one of my favorites.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWVbVT3igdw
3. Louis Armstrong – We Have All the Time in the World / the orchestral theme from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service This is just so different from anything else, it’s not really a Bond theme per se, in the same way as the film is the black sheep of the Bond family. Undeservedly so, since this is one of the few songs that stands on its own even without the theme. The extra “oomf!” it adds to the film at just the right moment, too, is incredibly important. It’s almost like the entire Bond universe gets reset in one short musical number. And then there’s the emotional gut punch of Bond’s final words in this film, “It’s all right . . . There’s no hurry. We have all the time in the world.” If that weren’t enough, the actual theme music composed for the film that plays over the credits remains my second or third favorite orchestral break from the entire series of Bond films. It’s different, and yet familiar. Breaking new ground, but grounded in the old. Just like the film.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJsPoI2w6-A
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0OQAxT1LR4
2. Sheryl Crow – Tomorrow Never Dies. This might be controversial for me to put this so far up, but hear me out. This is a great song, expertly performed. From moment one, you know this a Bond song. And more than any other Bond theme, this one actually takes some talent to belt out that chorus. Also great is how amazingly well the lyrics match up with the film’s script. I always figured this song was song from the point of view of Teri Hatcher’s murdered corpse. Morbid, I know, but it kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDe1xi4tGUA
1. Shirley Bassey – Goldfinger. Shirley Bassey, you get a pass for your mediocre Moonraker and Diamonds Are Forever themes just because this is so damn good. The word I most often see associated with your name is “the inimitable Shirley Bassey.” This hyperbole is warranted– just search for other versions of people singing Goldfinger. They SUCK. She truly is inimitable. She just nails this so perfectly, and few other movie themes outside of a handful of John Williams scores so perfectly capture, enhance, and propel the spirit of the film for which it was written. Goldfinger would not be the movie it is without this. Bond would not be Bond without the Goldfinger theme. How influential is it? It returns as a motif in Gladys Knight’s License to Kill.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy_PJODH3p0
I expect my picks to engender some hurt feelings. Who did I snub? Who did I elevate unnecessarily? Let us know in the comments below.
And for those of you who want more Goldfinger: