SPECTRE - James Bond #24

[peter.anschutz 43]

I didn't realize the new song was released this morning. Took a listen and...

[Quintus 5,399]

Heh

Now that's a Bond song with fucking bollocks and imagination. Nerve shredding string arrangement from Michel Columbier merged and processed through Mirwais Ahmadzai's electroclash kaleidoscope. Gotta love those detuned, syncopated house chords at 1:42.

Similarly, the song Madonna provided for this sequence is pure dynamite. Few elements of the Bond song aesthetic remain standing after she's done, and what elements remain have been subtly transformed. At first the song seems drawn to the safety of convention: it starts with some spooky strings, and seems to want to set up a catchy vocal melody. But there's something grudging about even that: the verse's melody is grappy and clipped, repetitious, confined to a four-note segment of the minor scale; the voice is digitally processed to the point that it sounds like an android Madonna. Pretty quickly, this seems barely like a melody at all, especially against the string arrangement that precedes it and undergirds it.

As the song unfolds, there are moments when the vocal melody seems like it's about to shake free, but then something barges in to obstruct it. All the while, a pervasive electronic-dance-music aesthetic keeps telling us that the voice be heard as an unwelcome imposition on the synth-and-drum-machine-driven groove. It's a song that no longer has much use for a singer. For decades, Bond singers had gotten to play coy, had gotten to threaten, to menace, to entice--none of this possible for Madonna's voice in "Die Another Day." Just getting a word in, or perhaps, a word out, in the sonic swirl around her, counts as a kind of victory.

The instrumentation, musical arrangment, and production, too, tell you this is not the typical James Bond song. Beyond the strings, whose presents the Bond sound, there are no traditional instruments. And even though the strings are real (not sampled), arranged by legendary film composer Michel Colombier, like Madonna's voice they're brought into the digital domain to be chopped up, distorted, and otherwise defamiliarized. "Die Another Day" preserves the string section and the emphasis on vocals of the typical Bond song, but it uses digital signal-processing to destabilize the sense of warmth and humanity strings and singing voices normally create. Most everything else is synths, and more synths that are programmed to sound "synthetic:" like the scorpions that populate the title sequence the synths aren't pretending to be other instruments or voices, they are just pretending.

Madonna and her collaborator on the song, the French guitarist/producers Mirwais Ahmadzai. were very resolute about bringing the Bond songs into the world of techno. This wasn't only a matter of using electronic sounds. It meant engaging with techno's history. To take one example: the synth bass that enters about thirty seconds in mimics the Roland TB-303 Bass Line. an artificial sounding mini-synthesiser. associated with techno, acid and rave of the late eighties and early ninties. Madonna and Ahmadzai likely understood that using the TB-303 in techno's accustomed manner, with overdriven filter sweeps and the notes bending into each other. would create fissures not just on the surface of the Bond-song, but in the Bond-song audience. The kind of middle-of-the-road hearing that united listeners around songs like "You Only Live Twice" was suddenly subdivided into those who know and those that felt (and in fact were) left out. Some would hear such sounds and realize that they had a history, and specific cultural resonances, while others would just experience them as alienating and weird.

So the record presents a combustible mixture that both fulfils and subverts basic Bond-song conventions. Android or not, the voice is still recognisably Madonna's: it has the Bond song's traditional celebrity vocalist and a whole apparatus designed to make her sound strange. And despite the choppiness and other characteristics of electronic dance music, the song still works as voice-driven pop. It's probably a virute of this record that it was insufficiently "pop" for Bond fans and film critics (who heard it as flat, too electronic, repetitious, not hooky enough), and too vocalcentric for dance music aficionados--while still reaching single digits on the pop and dance charts.

From The James Bond Songs: Pop Anthems of Late Capitalism by Adrian Daub and Charles Kronengold.

But what does it matter when it's just not catchy and ended up being another also-ran?

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Why does a song need to be catchy?

[leeallen01 2,133]

Generic, expected. Only a Bond-esque song because of the cliche orchestral accompaniment that sounds so forced like they weren't confident the world would be able to separate it from just another Male voice that wants to sound high like a woman because it's "haunting" and "fragile." BOOOOOORING.

I guess the tradition of the composer writing the song and then using it as the main theme throughout, is now dead. Newman doesn't write songs and has had no input in skyfall or spectre song-wise.

I love Newman. Massive fan, but bring David Arnold back and have him write a song again that he beautifully carries throughout the score. Casino Royale still remains the best Bond Score and Best Bond Song easily of the Daniel Craig era.

I enjoyed Newman's Skyfall score but this piece alone and more specifically 1:06 onwards is better than his entire Skyfall score. Arnold's mastery of the Bond theme and his own song counterpointed is glorious.

[Quintus 5,399]

Why does a song need to be catchy?

I just tend to like strong melody and harmony and all my favorite songs have those things.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Strong melodies? How JWFan of you!

[Quintus 5,399]

I always knew there must be a reason why I joined.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Boredom mostly, in my case...

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

Casino Royale still remains the best Bond Score and Best Bond Song easily of the Daniel Craig era.

Hear that? It's the sound of Sharky fainting.

[Arpy 4,145]

Sam Smith... What happened? I dunno, some parts of this song are fine, but the vocals make me cringe.

All this means for me is another Bond film where I'll have to sit through the oppening credits and feel annoyed and then enjoy the movie a la my experience with Skyfall.

One of my favorite Bond songs was Duran Duran's A View to a Kill. This Smith abomination can go dance into the fire anytime it so pleases.

[Quintus 5,399]

Nobody does it better than Carly Simon.

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Casino Royale still remains the best Bond Score and Best Bond Song easily of the Daniel Craig era.

Hear that? It's the sound of Sharky fainting.

Nope. It's the sound of Sharky loading his shotgun.

------------------

A somewhat cringey but well written piece in The Atlantic on the song's "subversiveness", both in its wimpinessand datedness.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/09/writings-on-the-wall-sam-smiths-radically-wimpy-james-bond-theme/407383/

David Arnold incisively called Bond themes "a cross-pollination of black and white music styles." Apart from Smith's soul melismas and the string portamenti, this is the least black Bond theme song in over 50 years.

[Quintus 5,399]

Sam Smith's Bond song splits opinion, so says the Beeb! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34357110

[Sweeping Strings 2,344]

Nice orchestration. But far too falsetto-y, far too little in the lyrics (outside of 'I never shoot to miss') to distinguish it as a Bond song and far too much that makes it just another of Smith's whiny-ass break-up ballads. And it being one of the handful of Bond songs that makes no effort to include the title in the lyrics doesn't help, either.

To quote a fellow member of a Bond forum that myself and Sharky are on - 'Fleming's Bond would've told Smith to snap out of it. Craig's Bond would tell him to shut the fuck up'.

[KK 3,307]

Just heard it. After all the reactions, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be. First 15 seconds are the best part, and I like the melody. But like SS mentioned, there's too much falsetto, and it too often sounds like another one of Smith's angsty songs. Even the arrangement was pretty underwhelming. I guess it has potential though.

[Muad'Dib 1,801]

Why the keep stopping Newman from participating on the arrangements of the songs?

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

He writes orchestra classical songs, they need someone more relatable to do the main beginning theme.

[Muad'Dib 1,801]

Thank God they got Hansy and company to arrange those god-awful Elton John versions in TLK. Imagine the opening of the film with this:

*pukes*

[Quintus 5,399]

Huh? I really like that.

[publicist 4,643]

Just imagine a new Bond song would sound like this. People would celebrate on the streets (lyrics aside).

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Sweeping Strings 2,344]

Whatever ... it could've been included, if you ask me. Probably by taking more than 20 fucking minutes to write it, for example.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Where do people keep getting this fact that the song took 20 minutes to write?

Either way, why does it matter how long it took to write? Dylan wrote "Blowin' In The Wind" in 10 minutes.

[mrbellamy 6,272]

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-34183337

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Where do people keep getting this fact that the song took 20 minutes to write?

Sam Smith.

In an interview with National Public Radio's Morning Edition, Smith claimed he and Napes wrote the song in 20-30 minutes.

"We literally wrote the song in like, 20 to 30 minutes. It was so quick," Smith told NPR. "And then I recorded the vocal, again, in probably like 15 to 20 minutes. And then the song was done. The vocal that you hear now on the song is the vocal from the demo, I never re-vocaled the song."

http://www.billboard.com/articles/chart-beat/real-time-charts/6708100/sam-smith-bond-theme-writings-wall-trending-140

Either way, why does it matter how long it took to write? Dylan wrote "Blowin' In The Wind" in 10 minutes.

Well for one, Smith isn't a Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell or Lou Reed. He probably never will be. If you wrote a pop masterpiece it's acceptable to boast how little time (and by implication: effort) it took to write. If you turn in a load of fluffy bollocks like this, you deserve ridicule.

Look, Smith had to inhibit the character of Bond - a middle aged, tough-hearted, aggressively heterosexual professional killer. A blunt instrument. That's not an easy brief and it should take more than half an hour to churn out. It should require a combination of empathy, imagination and emotional memory (drawing from experiences).

[Lewya 360]

I prefer this cover of the song over the actual thing

[mrbellamy 6,272]

Where do people keep getting this fact that the song took 20 minutes to write?

Sam Smith.

In an interview with National Public Radio's Morning Edition, Smith claimed he and Napes wrote the song in 20-30 minutes.

"We literally wrote the song in like, 20 to 30 minutes. It was so quick," Smith told NPR. "And then I recorded the vocal, again, in probably like 15 to 20 minutes. And then the song was done. The vocal that you hear now on the song is the vocal from the demo, I never re-vocaled the song."

http://www.billboard.com/articles/chart-beat/real-time-charts/6708100/sam-smith-bond-theme-writings-wall-trending-140

Either way, why does it matter how long it took to write? Dylan wrote "Blowin' In The Wind" in 10 minutes.

Well for one, Smith isn't a Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell or Lou Reed. He probably never will be. If you wrote a pop masterpiece it's acceptable to boast how little time (and by implication: effort) it took to write. If you turn in a load of fluffy bollocks like this, you deserve ridicule.

Look, Smith had to inhibit the character of Bond - a middle aged, tough-hearted, aggressively heterosexual professional killer. A blunt instrument. That's not an easy brief and it should take more than half an hour to churn out. It should require a combination of empathy, imagination and emotional memory (drawing from experiences).

Yeah, plus this was a commission, not a case where a song comes to mind and it just so happens to be "Blowin in the Wind". A first draft, sure, crank it out in 20 minutes but if you got the opportunity to do something as massive as Bond, with such a rich history...wouldn't you want to really take the time to craft something? Iron it out? Even if you think you nailed it, wouldn't you want to let it ruminate? Especially if your concept is to write it from Bond's perspective?

There's a danger of overthinking it, I suppose, but come on, 20 minutes? Maybe he's just making that up or exaggerating it from a few hours, but still, the kid's only 23...seems a little naive and lacking in self-awareness (if not arrogant) for him to think he nailed it that quick. He's not nearly enough of a prodigy for me to be charmed by how unfazed he is, amazed by his own prowess. Yeah, he had Jimmy Napes, I guess, but everybody honestly thought it was as good as it could be? Doesn't seem like they were under any pressure to finish ASAP...I dunno, people in this industry confuse me sometimes.

[TheUlyssesian 2,473]

Anyone heard the Instrumental Version yet.

I don't mean the karoke version that seems to be out. I mean a proper instrumental version. I think it was supposed to be released the same day as the song.

Anybody sampled it?

[Richard Penna 3,671]

That Connie Talbot version isn't very Bond-like, but I actually like it. Sam Smith's voice just annoys me very quickly.

Doesn't make the lyrics any better though.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

Good.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

No.

Although on a random note, I'd like to see an "old Bond" story starring Alan Rickman. That'd be hilarious.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

He would make a splendid M or Q!

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Final trailer.

Another TV spot.

[Jay 37,287]

Excellent! Finally a showcase of what the action will be like. Very much looking forward to this movie.

Hmmm, I think I'll watch to rewatch the first three between now and then......

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Doctor No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger?

[Jay 37,287]

No.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

"We do things for real."

Ahem.

[KK 3,307]

Don't be silly! Those were clearly practical effects!

[Cerebral Cortex 3,357]

"We do things for real."

Ahem.

At least it's real CGI.

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

More like: "we do things. For real, yo."

[publicist 4,643]

Anyone heard the Instrumental Version yet.

I don't mean the karoke version that seems to be out. I mean a proper instrumental version. I think it was supposed to be released the same day as the song.

Anybody sampled it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHpCfbm37d4

It's less of a nuisance.

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

Painfully boring though.

[publicist 4,643]

I refer you again to this Barry song, written for a throwaway Bryan Forbes film in 1968. He just did that in between other, more high profile gigs and nowadays they spend 5Mio$ per picture to come up with limp Barry impressions that not even reach a tenth on the sultriness scale.

[Sweeping Strings 2,344]

Final trailer.

That shot at 0:47 was totally not CG!

Like ANY modern movie would actually put its star in the path of a collapsing building. In fact, many of them would only have had him on an actual roof for a few establishing shots and then 'greenscreened in' the rest.