I have a kind of tolerate/hate relationship with all James Bond movies, but I still really love a lot of the theme songs. I’ve noticed also that a lot of other pop songs seem sort of reminiscent of whatever it is I like about these tunes–In some cases it is definitely deliberate, but in others it may be coincidental. What do you think?
This is my absolute favorite actual Bond song, in spite of not being performed by Shirley Bassey (or maybe because of it) I feel like it defines the archetype or sets the mold or what have you.
I don’t know anything about music, but I’m pretty sure anyone who knows more than one thing about music could very easily describe exactly what it is that all these songs have in common. It’s more fun to me to not fully understand it, but notice it anyway.
Radiohead has two examples, I think both were written as “James Bond songs,” but only the second was actually intended for use in a real movie:
The first is kind of a deep cut, called either “Big Boots” or “Man-o-war.” I think it’s a great song, but they have never included it on an actual record AFAIK. It’s a little bit too much out of the Pablo Honey/Bends era guitar ballad to suit their current style, but they apparently put True Love Waits on their last album, so who knows.
The other is a song I think they were commissioned to write for Spectre, but then it didn’t get used in the film anyway. It is so many times better than the one they went with that it’s kind of embarrassing, but that was a horrible movie so perhaps it didn’t deserve a song this good. Instead you can watch it in fake james bond style opening credits to the empire strikes back (???) that I think has already been posted somewhere on SB recently:
Elsewhere, I feel like this Chairlift song really does all of the James Bond song tricks, including even using potential corny Bond movie titles in the lyrics (Cool as a Fire, Gone With the Weather, Nothing Lasts Forever, etc)
I love the music from Bond movies. As far as I can tell common musical tropes include:
ascending/descending chromatic lines, particularly on the fifth of the chord
rapid brass/percussion punctuation (as in Goldfinger)
suspensions resolving to major chord (ballads)
The k.d. lang song from the credits of Tomorrow Never Dies was originally the title song and it shows because all of the music cues in the score reflect the brass line.
More recently it was rumored that “No Good About Goodbye” by Shirley Bassey and David Arnold was a rejected Quantum of Solace song, though Arnold denies it. This may be wishful due to “Another Way To Die” containing the worst duet in English-language music.
Mark Ronson has a good one in him.
Also, if they must keep making them Bond should be rebooted to be a period piece set in the middle of the 20th C.
Lana Del Rey was in the running to do Spectre’s theme before they went with Sam Smith. I think this is what happened with the song, appropriately titled 24 for the 24th Bond film.