James Bond is better than everything

[Tallguy 2,166]

1 hour ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH (the film) is ok. I'd put it second on my Brosnan Bond list.

 

This is true. (I'll go out on a limb and guess that Goldeneye ranks first?)

 

TWINE and DAD are each half a good Bond film. TWINE alternates good and bad (character scenes alternate with boom boom 'splosions). DAD has a pretty good first half and then goes full Bad Guy Hamilton for the back half. TWINE's bad parts aren't terrible. DAD's bad parts are. Once they get to the ice palace not even Rosamund Pike can save them. It makes you want to watch the avalanche from On Her Majesty's Secret Service on a loop.

 

Both of them have a fair amount of good character stuff for PB to do. I always felt Brosnan's colder more tortured side was something the producers grudgingly get by and then they made it the entirety of Craig's character. There ain't no justice. (I liked Craig.)

[Sweeping Strings 1,971]

Brosnan stated in interviews a desire to have Bond 'leaning into' the Vodka Martinis a little too keenly as a coping mechanism, to maybe be brought in from the field owing to a psychological problem etc. Certainly the villains in his films verbally snipe about his psyche, values, ego etc. more than they would've done with Connery or Moore.   

7 hours ago, Tom Guernsey said:

Not a fan of his singing style either and it doesn't really work for a Bond song. I'm not sure it would be much better if sung by someone else though to be fair, it's still pretty nondescript. The fact that it's the orchestration (which I assume is by someone else - although kudos if he did it himself!) which you remember kinda tells you all you need to know. For me, it falls squarely into the category of "Bond songs that sound like someone trying to write a Bond song" - the ChatGPT of Bond songs if you will. In that category I would also put the Adele song (which is better but not great - apple crumble) and most definitely Another Way to Die from Quantum of Solace, which sounds like a patchwork of different Bond song tropes glued together so it's not even a coherent pastiche.

 

Harsh but fair. I'm not pre-disposed to like mumbling teenage songwriters so I appreciate I'm not her core demographic, but the hype surrounding her effort seemed considerably disproportionate to the actual quality of the result. I guess it seems churlish to criticise others for writing pastiche Bond songs when that isn't really a major issue, but it needs a bit more something, somewhere. It doesn't help that it takes an age to get going but even then never quite gets anywhere.

 

I miss the good old days when I thought Madge's Die Another Day was the nadir of Bond songs... in retrospect, it's actually pretty great (I think I have a natural Madonna aversion), managing to be something a bit different, but still being quite a good fit for a Bond song, as well as being pretty catchy. It's not like For Your Eyes Only or The Living Daylights sound like Goldfinger, but they are still work both as decent songs and as Bond songs.

 

It used to be a privileged kinda gig, given to artists who had proven themselves with at least a couple of albums under their belt. Last couple were given to artists who had been around for about 5 minutes in comparison. Smith's revelation that he'd written TWOTW in about 10 minutes didn't help. 

[Tom Guernsey 1,965]

58 minutes ago, Sweeping Strings said:

It used to be a privileged kinda gig, given to artists who had proven themselves with at least a couple of albums under their belt. Last couple were given to artists who had been around for about 5 minutes in comparison. Smith's revelation that he'd written TWOTW in about 10 minutes didn't help. 

Agreed on all counts really... although I have to concede that how long it takes you to write something doesn't necessarily correlate with its quality, if people think your song is dreck, saying you dashed it off in 10 minutes doesn't help your cause. Then again, we are probably in a minority and most people thought it was the best Bond song ever cos it's, like, you know, not old fashioned and that... ;-)

[Naïve Old Fart 8,685]

So... let's rank the Bond songs (if we haven't already).

 

My personal top-5:

1/ The Living Daylights

2/ GoldenEye 

3/ Licence To Kill 

4/ If You Asked Me To 

5/ Surrender

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Tallguy said:

This is true. (I'll go out on a limb and guess that Goldeneye ranks first?)

No limbs needing to go out on. You are correct.

GOLDENEYE is, put simply, a class act.

[Nick1Ø66 3,856]

1 hour ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

So... let's rank the Bond songs (if we haven't already).

 

My personal top-5:

1/ The Living Daylights

2/ GoldenEye 

3/ Licence To Kill 

4/ If You Asked Me To 

5/ Surrender

 

1. Nobody Does it Better
2. For Your Eyes Only
3. Moonraker
4. Skyfall
5. Goldfinger

 

Honorable mention to Live and Let Die & From Russia With Love, which are both great, but I think only women should sing the Bond songs.

[Tallguy 2,166]

17 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

but I think only women should sing the Bond songs.

 

Nuh UH!

 

So I'm trying to do a top 5. Can't do it.

 

Also, I assume we're excluding The James Bond Theme and On Her Majesty's Secret Service?

[JNHFan2000 2,043]

My personal Top 5 song is:

 

1. Live And Let Die
2. Skyfall
3. Goldfinger
4. A View To A Kill
5. Licence To Kill

[Raiders of the SoundtrArk 2,223]

My personal Top 5:

1. Goldeneye
2. Skyfall
3. The World is Not Enough
4. You Know my Name
5. Tomorrow Never Dies

 

[Naïve Old Fart 8,685]

3 hours ago, Tallguy said:

Also, I assume we're excluding The James Bond Theme and On Her Majesty's Secret Service?

 

Let's stick with songs, for now, but if you want to add top-5 individual tracks, then...

 

1/ Exercise At Gibraltar 

2/ Journey To Blofeld's Hideaway

2/ Flight Into Space 

4/ On Her Majesty's Secret Service 

5/ Helicopter Ride

 

 

[Nick1Ø66 3,856]

29 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

 

Let's stick with songs, for now, but if you want to add top-5 individual tracks, then...

 

1/ Exercise At Gibraltar 

2/ Journey To Blofeld's Hideaway

2/ Flight Into Space 

4/ On Her Majesty's Secret Service 

5/ Helicopter Ride

 

 

 

Bond '77!!!!! 

[Tallguy 2,166]

47 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

 

Let's stick with songs, for now, but if you want to add top-5 individual tracks, then...

 

1/ Exercise At Gibraltar 

2/ Journey To Blofeld's Hideaway

2/ Flight Into Space 

4/ On Her Majesty's Secret Service 

5/ Helicopter Ride

 

 

 

No no. I just included those two because they're title songs. So is the instrumental of From Russia with Love, come to that.

[Goldfinger 57]

My Top 5 title songs

 

You Know My Name

Nobody Does It Better

Live and Let Die

Diamonds Are Forever

Skyfall

 

Honorable Mention: Surrender (Tomorrow Never Dies)

[Sweeping Strings 1,971]

I was at a 'Bond Songs By Candlelight' gig last Friday evening ... I grinned and bore The Writing's On The Wall and No Time To Die (although admittedly both were improved in the mouths of different vocalists than the originals), but the rest was fine and dandy. Highlights were the opening 'one-two' of the Bond theme followed by You Know My Name, Goldeneye delivered with particular gusto (probably due to Tina Turner's recent passing) and the famous 'fainting note' in Thunderball hit and held with considerable aplomb. 

[Naïve Old Fart 8,685]

Did they play anything from OHMSS?

[Tom Guernsey 1,965]

24 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Did they play anything from OHMSS?

Hopefully a dubsteb version of Do You Know How Christmas Trees are Grown?

[Luke Skywalker 1,622]

Surrender and No good about goodbye are such great bond songs. A shame they only ley arnold get title song once.

[Tallguy 2,166]

8 minutes ago, Luke Skywalker said:

Surrender and No good about goodbye are such great bond songs. A shame they only ley arnold get title song once.

 

Twice, right? The World is Not Enough and You Know My Name?

[Luke Skywalker 1,622]

I though you inow my name he implemented the melody in the score, but not composed it. But i may be wrong

[Tallguy 2,166]

According to Wikipedia it was a collaboration. Arnold wrote the music and Cornell wrote the lyrics. Which was pretty much how Barry did it.

[Docteur Qui 1,499]

On 26/04/2023 at 1:22 AM, Tom Guernsey said:

Agreed on all counts really... although I have to concede that how long it takes you to write something doesn't necessarily correlate with its quality, if people think your song is dreck, saying you dashed it off in 10 minutes doesn't help your cause. Then again, we are probably in a minority and most people thought it was the best Bond song ever cos it's, like, you know, not old fashioned and that... ;-)

 

Indeed - Barry was notorious for writing his songs in a matter of hours or days - he famously wrote "Thunderball" at the last minute to replace (the superior, IMO) "Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" Great composers can write great things incredibly quickly; it's an absolute necessity in this gig.

[Tom Guernsey 1,965]

7 hours ago, Docteur Qui said:

 

Indeed - Barry was notorious for writing his songs in a matter of hours or days - he famously wrote "Thunderball" at the last minute to replace (the superior, IMO) "Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" Great composers can write great things incredibly quickly; it's an absolute necessity in this gig.

I remember an interview with Neil Hannon (The Divine Comedy) about a time he was asked to write a song with Guy Chambers and being terrified by how quickly Chambers (and collaborators) could churn something out and that he had only just started to form some thoughts while the others had already finished.

 

Mr Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang is a great song... I had forgotten that it wasn't recorded as a song (at least not on the version I have), just an instrumental. Not sure if I like it more or less than Thunderball itself (I mean, it's like who's the least attractive Hemsworth), but shows Barry's greatness that he could write two classic Bond songs for the same film when some writers can't manage one...

[Sweeping Strings 1,971]

15 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Did they play anything from OHMSS?

We Have All The Time In The World. 

Only films that were 'left out' were The Living Daylights, Die Another Day and Quantum Of Solace. Shame about Daylights but the other two are a bit, um, divisive to say the least and probably weren't missed.  

14 hours ago, Tom Guernsey said:

Hopefully a dubsteb version of Do You Know How Christmas Trees are Grown?

Ugh, the very thought  . 

[Naïve Old Fart 8,685]

2 hours ago, Tom Guernsey said:

...(I mean, it's like who's the least attractive Hemsworth)...

 

Liam 

[Luke Skywalker 1,622]

18 hours ago, Tallguy said:

According to Wikipedia it was a collaboration. Arnold wrote the music and Cornell wrote the lyrics. Which was pretty much how Barry did it.

Was the collaboration late in the game? Because i can only remember it being used in the score at the bahamas arrival, and maybe another instance. Its not throughout the film like in other films

[Sweeping Strings 1,971]

Full setlist and some pics of the performers from the concert. 

[JNHFan2000 2,043]

Which concert hall is that?

[Gabriel Bezerra 201]

5 hours ago, Luke Skywalker said:

Was the collaboration late in the game? Because i can only remember it being used in the score at the bahamas arrival, and maybe another instance. Its not throughout the film like in other films

It is used throughout frequently, it's basically his theme in the movie.

[Tallguy 2,166]

32 minutes ago, Gabriel Bezerra said:

It is used throughout frequently, it's basically his theme in the movie.

 

That's what I thought too, but it's not a score I know front to back, so I didn't say anything.

[Presto 4,254]

13 hours ago, Tom Guernsey said:

I remember an interview with Neil Hannon (The Divine Comedy) about a time he was asked to write a song with Guy Chambers and being terrified by how quickly Chambers (and collaborators) could churn something out and that he had only just started to form some thoughts while the others had already finished.

 

Mr Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang is a great song... I had forgotten that it wasn't recorded as a song (at least not on the version I have), just an instrumental. Not sure if I like it more or less than Thunderball itself (I mean, it's like who's the least attractive Hemsworth), but shows Barry's greatness that he could write two classic Bond songs for the same film when some writers can't manage one...

Wasn't it?

 

 

[Docteur Qui 1,499]

Shirley also recorded it:

 

 

She recorded the demo version first, but was unavailable when they went to re-record the song to match the length of the opening titles, so Warwick was approached. Bassey wasn't happy and sued the producers, which is why neither version was used or heard until the 90's (and why "Thunderball" replaced it). Allegedly anyway - I've also heard that the producers got cold feet about the song because it didn't contain the film's title in it.

 

8 hours ago, Luke Skywalker said:

Was the collaboration late in the game? Because i can only remember it being used in the score at the bahamas arrival, and maybe another instance. Its not throughout the film like in other films

 

You need to listen to that wonderful score again. It's basically the main theme of the score; Arnold uses it liberally, essentially replacing the James Bond theme which doesn't appear in full til the end credits. That was a masterstroke IMO - the score feels so fresh and inspired after the very tired Die Another Day, largely because it doesn't use Norman/Barry's theme as a crutch. The back half of the chorus melody ("the odds will betray you / and I will replace you") and the opening notes of the verse melody ("if you take a life") are all over the score, and the the opening "badum badum" rhythm from the intro is especially prominent in the action cues.

[Tom Guernsey 1,965]

9 hours ago, A Farewell to Kings said:

Wasn't it?

 

 

I should have clarified that the expanded release of the Thunderball score only contains instrumental versions but cool to hear it sung as intended.

[Sweeping Strings 1,971]

13 hours ago, JNHFan2000 said:

Which concert hall is that?

Belfast's Ulster Hall. Little bit of trivia ... it was where Led Zeppelin first played Stairway To Heaven live. 

I'm not 100% sure, but I think the Dionne Warwick version of Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang first turned up on this - 



 

[JNHFan2000 2,043]

3 hours ago, Sweeping Strings said:

Belfast's Ulster Hall. Little bit of trivia ... it was where Led Zeppelin first played Stairway To Heaven live. 

 

 Ah, ok. It looked very much like concert hall where I go to a lot. But it's another country

[Sweeping Strings 1,971]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Hall

More about it, should it be of interest. 

[Yavar Moradi 1,993]

8 hours ago, Sweeping Strings said:

I'm not 100% sure, but I think the Dionne Warwick version of Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang first turned up on this - 

 

Very cool album; it has both the Warwick and the Bassey versions. To my surprise (as a big fan of all Bassey Bond songs including “No Good About Goodbye”) I actually prefer the Warwick one!

 

And yeah I actually far prefer “Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” to “Thunderball” (nothing against Tom Jones… he’s an utter delight for The Emperor’s New Groove!)

 

Yavar

[Tallguy 2,166]

59 minutes ago, Yavar Moradi said:

And yeah I actually far prefer “Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” to “Thunderball” (nothing against Tom Jones… he’s an utter delight for The Emperor’s New Groove!)

 

That is an awesome collection. I don't think they've done an anniversary edition as well since. (I got it a few years late. Right before Goldeneye came out.) (I'm suddenly missing Tower Records.)

 

I'm honestly not sure I care which one they used since I like all of them. And the melodies both appear in the film and they're great.

 

Theme song guy!

 

"I'm sorry. You've thrown off the Emperor's groove." "Sorrrryyyyyyyyy!"

 

"Beware the groove!" "Groooooooove..."

 

"You owe me a new acorn."

[Naïve Old Fart 8,685]

"Pull the lever...

 

 

 

... wrong lever!!!"

[Presto 4,254]

"Well, ya got me. By all accounts, it doesn't make sense."

 

"Oh, right. The poison. The poison for Kuzco, the poison chosen especially to kill Kuzco, Kuzco's poison."

 

I definitely prefer the KKBB melody, as the Thunderball is too close to the Bond theme.

[Naïve Old Fart 8,685]

Recently I watched the beginning of THUNDERBALL with the second audio commentary. Imo, "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" definitely works far better than "Thunderball".

 

6 hours ago, A Farewell to Kings said:

I definitely prefer the KKBB melody, as the Thunderball is too close to the Bond theme.

 

Of course. They were both written by John Barry.

Oops! Controversial 

[Sweeping Strings 1,971]

The ghost of Monty Norman will visit you in the small hours and put a tarantula in your bed, lol. 

[Naïve Old Fart 8,685]

... and I will kill it with my shoe, in time to his music 

[Tallguy 2,166]

13 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

"Pull the lever...

 

 

 

... wrong lever!!!"

 

Can't believe I missed that one. When the movie was about to come out and Disney Channel was hocking it incessantly my nephew was quoting that line CONSTANTLY. And you know what? It STILL makes me laugh.

 

12 hours ago, A Farewell to Kings said:

I definitely prefer the KKBB melody, as the Thunderball is too close to the Bond theme.

 

Well, it quotes the theme, the up and down background bit. (I know, enough with the super technical musical jargon.) I miss when the themes did that. To this day when it gets to that bit in Goldeneye all the hairs on my neck stand up.

 

Arnold only KIND OF did it. Which makes me wonder if someone made a fuss since a) he had no qualms about playing the Bond theme and b) he's obviously as well versed in the history as any of us. I think on Shaken Not Stirred he might have added it to songs that didn't have it before.

[Sweeping Strings 1,971]

19 hours ago, Tallguy said:

 

That is an awesome collection. I don't think they've done an anniversary edition as well since. (I got it a few years late. Right before Goldeneye came out.) (I'm suddenly missing Tower Records.)

 

I'm honestly not sure I care which one they used since I like all of them. And the melodies both appear in the film and they're great.

 

Theme song guy!

 

"I'm sorry. You've thrown off the Emperor's groove." "Sorrrryyyyyyyyy!"

 

"Beware the groove!" "Groooooooove..."

 

"You owe me a new acorn."

I bought the 40th anniversary one too ... main attraction there was the rockin' version of the Bond theme from the Goldeneye trailer, which I don't think had been previously available. 

[Tallguy 2,166]

1 hour ago, Sweeping Strings said:

I bought the 40th anniversary one too ... main attraction there was the rockin' version of the Bond theme from the Goldeneye trailer, which I don't think had been previously available. 

 

Yeah. I forgot, I had both. That's why when it got to the 50th I said "No further!"

 

And yes, I bought the 40th for the Goldeneye track. Before that I just had a recording of the trailer on CD.

[Edmilson 5,674]

Henry Cavill’s Bond Audition Was ‘Tremendous,’ Says ‘Casino Royale’ Director: ‘If Daniel Craig Didn’t Exist, Henry Would’ve Made an Excellent 007’

[Jay 33,670]

I'd love to travel to that multiverse and see those movies

[Sweeping Strings 1,971]

19 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Henry Cavill’s Bond Audition Was ‘Tremendous,’ Says ‘Casino Royale’ Director: ‘If Daniel Craig Didn’t Exist, Henry Would’ve Made an Excellent 007’

It apparently coming down to him and Craig last time round made me hope that his chances were high this time round, but I guess his Warhammer commitments will put paid to that.   

[Luke Skywalker 1,622]

And maybe he would still be doing 007 movies, because he would still be young

[Sweeping Strings 1,971]

A marvellous bit of fan art - 

[Naïve Old Fart 8,685]

"'old on. You're dead!"