59 replies to this topic

[Gothamite]

If nothing else, I think Kamen's interpretation of the main Bond theme (found here at 2.06) is fun in a bombastic, pompous sort of way (I realise that this is a lot of the reason why people don't like it, though) and very fresh compared to Barry's (which had gotten to be very boring, especially in the gunbarrel sequences).

While QoS was a better "Bond seeking REVENGE!!!" film overall, LTK was a lot more fun (probably because of the time in which it was made). It was unfortunately not a suitable ending for Dalton's Bond, but then none of the Bond actors have had a suitable ending to their tenure, really (except Lazenby, I suppose).

[DamnCoffee]

I really liked Licence Revoked, it's definitely one of the best Bond theme renditions. However, the score overall is... average. Some tracks are great, but I find it, personally, one of the worser Bond soundtracks.

[Matt_13]

It's really not that bad at all. I love his rendition of the Bond theme. The quieter scenes are a bit rough, though.

[Safari Suit]

Well I own the LTK CD, and I certainly don't have a complete collection. Granted, that's more because I found it cheap than it is a recognition of the merits of the actual score. However, some tracks are pretty good, in particular Pam has some really nice touches towards the end. In the context of the film it's... functional. I don't find it anywhere near as flat or jarring as one or two of Arnold's scores.

[Mr_Wint]

I thought it was a terrible Bondscore when I first heard it. But after Serra's score, it isn't all bad.

To begin with, I have never been a fan of Michael Kamen. His 80s scores all sounds the same. For his LTK-score, there's a lot of noise but not much thematic music. The title song is not used in the score and the recurring motifs Kamen uses are extremely weak and barely stands out at all. The music feels americanized and a little bit too tough for a Bondfilm. The only thing memorable is his interpretation of the Bondtheme. I would like to hear a full Kamen version of the theme but I guess it was never recorded.

[Gogol Pushkin]

I love what he does with the gunbarrel. Loud and bombastic, coupled with the flicking guitar doing its thing with the James Bond theme, it's the best part of the score. He does a good, if unspectacular job throughout, it's a decent late 80's action score, but it doesn't have the character that John Barry's work carries.

[Guy Haines]

We didn't really get to hear all the score on the album, CD or cassette, did we? It was cluttered up early on with the "various artists", following the fashion of the typical late 80's soundtrack album - at least 50% songs, often more than that, with a bit of actual soundtrack at the end. I'd have kept the Gladys Knight and Patti Labelle tracks, but dropped the other two vocals, and added more of the actual Kamen score.

As for that score, it wasn't bad, although the gunbarrel Bond theme arrangement was a bit of a shocker - the opening bars anyway, when it gets to the main Bond theme it is pretty conventional stuff. And it was nice to have the guitar back for the James Bond theme. I could never understand why John Barry dropped the guitar arrangement for the theme after DAF. I bought the album "The Concert John Barry" when it was released, and it featured probably the first arrangement of the Monty Norman theme which excluded the guitar. It sounded suitable for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, but I never thought it would be used all the way through the Moore and Dalton eras.

One more comment - what happened to that Eric Clapton/Michael Kamen Bond theme that was supposed to have been used had the "Licence Revoked" title been retained? Was it ever recorded?

[LTK_(1989)]

Oh yes, I'm a big fan of Kamen's LTK score.

I think it's a great piece of music, very underrated. His variation of the Bond theme is only second to Barry's master arrangements, there are some very catchy Latin riffs in the score that I get into, got to love Kamen's "Pam" theme, Kamen comes up with some powerful reoccuring action themes, and, of course, there is his music for the gunbarrel sequence which has no equal as the best gunbarrel music of the series.

It's a top 10 Bond score for me.

[The Shark]

We didn't really get to hear all the score on the album, CD or cassette, did we? It was cluttered up early on with the "various artists", following the fashion of the typical late 80's soundtrack album - at least 50% songs, often more than that, with a bit of actual soundtrack at the end. I'd have kept the Gladys Knight and Patti Labelle tracks, but dropped the other two vocals, and added more of the actual Kamen score.

As for that score, it wasn't bad, although the gunbarrel Bond theme arrangement was a bit of a shocker - the opening bars anyway, when it gets to the main Bond theme it is pretty conventional stuff. And it was nice to have the guitar back for the James Bond theme. I could never understand why John Barry dropped the guitar arrangement for the theme after DAF. I bought the album "The Concert John Barry" when it was released, and it featured probably the first arrangement of the Monty Norman theme which excluded the guitar. It sounded suitable for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, but I never thought it would be used all the way through the Moore and Dalton eras.

I think it coincided with the more late romantic, laissez-faire approach Barry took to composing from the mid 70s onwards, all but abandoning his Kenton-esque brassy orchestration, and percussive surf guitar, opting for a more Prokofiev-like sound.

I do quite like Michael Kamen's score for LICENSE TO KILL, but only in form heard in the film, not the truncated album release. Tracks that I particularly like are when Bond the aquarium at night, camouflages as a Manta Ray and sneaks aboard the Wave Krest, Escapes from Krest's goons and accordingly flies off, attempts to blow up Sanchez's office with the signature gun, and when he wakes up to face the grotesque fish statue.

[Tanger]

I love it.

This was the first Bond soundtrack I bought.

[Bryce (003)]

I won't say I love it, but it is nice and I do like it. I'll probably come back and edit this post, but I will list my favorite tracks and cite why. To each their own though.

[darthbond]

Thank goodness! I felt like I am the only one who liked this score. Glad to see I am not the only one.

darthbond

[Royal Dalton]

I could have done with a bit less of the Latin guitar business. But I think it's fine on the whole, and a better Bond score than those that followed it.

It does suffer a bit from not having the title song integrated into the score. But that's something that was beyond Mister Kamen's control, of course.

[Guy Haines]

We didn't really get to hear all the score on the album, CD or cassette, did we? It was cluttered up early on with the "various artists", following the fashion of the typical late 80's soundtrack album - at least 50% songs, often more than that, with a bit of actual soundtrack at the end. I'd have kept the Gladys Knight and Patti Labelle tracks, but dropped the other two vocals, and added more of the actual Kamen score.

As for that score, it wasn't bad, although the gunbarrel Bond theme arrangement was a bit of a shocker - the opening bars anyway, when it gets to the main Bond theme it is pretty conventional stuff. And it was nice to have the guitar back for the James Bond theme. I could never understand why John Barry dropped the guitar arrangement for the theme after DAF. I bought the album "The Concert John Barry" when it was released, and it featured probably the first arrangement of the Monty Norman theme which excluded the guitar. It sounded suitable for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, but I never thought it would be used all the way through the Moore and Dalton eras.

I think it coincided with the more late romantic, laissez-faire approach Barry took to composing from the mid 70s onwards, all but abandoning his Kenton-esque brassy orchestration, and percussive surf guitar, opting for a more Prokofiev-like sound.

I do quite like Michael Kamen's score for LICENSE TO KILL, but only in form heard in the film, not the truncated album release. Tracks that I particularly like are when Bond the aquarium at night, camouflages as a Manta Ray and sneaks aboard the Wave Krest, Escapes from Krest's goons and accordingly flies off, attempts to blow up Sanchez's office with the signature gun, and when he wakes up to face the grotesque fish statue.

In other words, all the cues that should have been on the Licence To Kill OST album in the first place. A case could be made for a re-release along the lines of those 1960s soundtracks.

Your answer concerning John Barry's change of style is convincing. Although my favourite Barry era was from the mid 1960s to the early 1970s, I enjoy all his work, I just wish he had left the guitar in the James Bond theme performances from 1974 onwards.

[KENDO NAGAZAKI]

Well, I wore out the soundtrack album pretty good on it's release, put it that way..... though I was only 13 at the time. The gunbarrel was a bit of a shocker at the time, though I've since come to utterly love it. His Bond themes were great and I also particularly love all those moments left off the score which Shark referred to. Such a shame Kamen's no longer with us. Not only would I welcome him back in a heartbeat over the current imbecile, but he'd also doubtless be able to help out with any potential better future release of the LTK score, which IMO it definitely deserves. All the soundtrack album as released really gave us was a decent but somewhat unsatisfyingly brief Kamen suite on side two, with just one of his cues on the MOR pop song dominated first side. This is simply not right when you've got every single second of Arnold's CSI-standard CR and QOS scores all over the internet to listen to at will.

[The Shark]

Well, I wore out the soundtrack album pretty good on it's release, put it that way..... though I was only 13 at the time. The gunbarrel was a bit of a shocker at the time, though I've since come to utterly love it. His Bond themes were great and I also particularly love all those moments left off the score which Shark referred to. Such a shame Kamen's no longer with us. Not only would I welcome him back in a heartbeat over the current imbecile, but he'd also doubtless be able to help out with any potential better future release of the LTK score, which IMO it definitely deserves. All the soundtrack album as released really gave us was a decent but somewhat unsatisfyingly brief Kamen suite on side two, with just one of his cues on the MOR pop song dominated first side. This is simply not right when you've got every single second of Arnold's CSI-standard CR and QOS scores all over the internet to listen to at will.

I'm going to have to quote The Cat ad verbatim here, since he knows more about it that I do, or probably ever will.

Licence to Kill: The original release of MCA Records' Licence To Kill is notorious for not including a lot of score, mostly because the label got the job of releasing the soundtrack because of the songs. As such, they had little interest in the score to begin with, so the fact that even around 30 minutes of music made it to the album was some sort of miracle. I mean they could have easily made an unrelated song compilation instead...

Now since the soundtrack is still tied up with MCA, there are really no ways to get more of the score released. MCA isn't interested in licensing their material and if they do, the original programs must be kept - which means there's no meaning in a re-release because the original is still pretty widely available. There's simply too much unreleased music to list, so it's easier if you just take a look at of what's released, and deduct the remaining cues as the unreleased ones, which amount to somewhere between 40 and 50 minutes.

One more thing: Licence to Kill contains a lot of tracked material, so stop asking about the music for the truck chase. That material was edited together from other cues (sometimes very clumsily) and most of them are available on the soundtrack. But don't let this discourage you - there's still a lot of awesome music you can't get, so keep waiting.

http://blofeldscat.l...com/149155.html

[KENDO NAGAZAKI]

Yep, trust me I'm all too well aware of MCA's approach to soundtrack releases, especially in the mid to late 80s. I'd have to dig out my LP to check, but I'm pretty sure Kathy Nelson would have been involved somewhere with the LTK release. Soundtracks such as Back To The Future and Beverly Hills Cop I & 2 were given similar song-heavy massacre jobs a few years prior to LTK's release and neither of those have prompted a proper score release either, despite all being far more popular films than LTK will ever be. So yep, the situation I fear will forever remain dire over kamen's LTK score. All I can do is dream that some people somewhere will start to actually give a s*** about film scores again one day.

[hilly]

I like the score. It's very much a product of it's time (and quite similar to Kamen's Lethal Weapon 2 score of the same year) but I cannot imagine the film without it, especially the truck chase and the gun-barrel. Like the film itself, I think it's had a raw deal over the years and is sorely under-rated

[Bond... Raybond]

The good news is that MCA, or rather Universal Music Group, has started to licence their music - the complete Back To The Future score was recently released by Intrada Records - and the specıalıst soundtrack companies (especially FSM, La La Land and Intrada) are aware of the demands for expanded Bond albums. When the recent rumours of expanded Bond releases were swirling around alot of the chatter was that Licence To Kill would be one of the expansion albums. So keep hoping.

BTW, a good place for soundtrack related gossip and release news is Film Score Monthly's discussion forum.

[iBond]

I like certain aspects of Kamen's score. It is not by any means my favorite 007 soundtrack, however I like the action pieces used during the pre-titles sequence and the tanker climax. The slow parts I really don't like. For example, when Bond and Bouvier are on the boat together. Not a fan at all. But again, the action pieces are well done. I also like the music used when M talks with Bond in Florida.

Edited by iBond, 25 January 2013 - 06:02 PM.

[tdalton]

To answer the question, yes, I do very much like the Kamen's score for Licence to Kill.  His score for the gunbarrel is my favorite of the series, by a very large margin, and "Pam" is one of my favorite tracks in the entire series as well.  

[thecasinoroyale]

There are better Bond soundtracks but there are worse.

 

Kamen does a good job encapsulating the South American vibe, with chilling cues and some haunting melodies.

 

But his Bond theme in 'Licence Revoked' sounds brilliant during that pre-title sequence with the guitar riff sounding very dangerous, and I agree tdalton that the gunbarrel is one of the best of the series, very atmospheric and sheer Dalton!

[col_007]

Did that Eric Clapton and Mchael Kamen version of the james bond theme ever surface or was it just a Rumour ?

Edited by col_007, 25 January 2013 - 08:39 PM.

[tdalton]

They actually recorded a version of the theme, but it's never been released.  It also seems that, from listening to those involved talk about it, that it never will be either.

[coco1997]

I enjoy Kamen's score so much, I set his gunbarrel cue as my alarm ringtone to wake me up every morning.

[sharpshooter]

I like his gunbarrel theme and a few other cues in there. But Barry's The Living Daylights is my number one go to Dalton music fix. Barry managed to embody this portrayal well. Tracks like 'The Sniper was a Woman' highlight the tense, serious side of Dalton, 'Into Vienna' and 'Kara Meets Bond' the romantic side and 'Inflight Fight' the action man with a harder edge. One of my favourite soundtracks of the series, up there with OHMSS and YOLT. 

[Professor Pi]

The LTK score has grown on me over the years, though I didn't care for it when it first came out.  However, Licence Revoked is one of my favorite tracks of any Bond score, and Vic Flick, the guitarist on the original 1962 recording of the Bond theme, plays on it.  Sanchez is in the Bahamas is a worthwhile track as well.  The score evokes the Latin feel of the movie, and If You Asked Me Too is as good as many other title tracks.  The only piece of score that never appealed to me was Ninja. Ad there was no need for the source music of Wedding Party to be included.

 

If you can get a hold of one of the Complete Extended score CD's, it's a more cohesive listening experience.  However, MCA has been really stingy about re-releases and they hold the rights to this Bond soundtrack in perpetuity.

[seawolfnyy]

I like LTK's score. It's not the best by any means, but definitely better than some i.e. Goldeneye, TMWTGG, MR. I think it definitely works well in capturing the Mexican feel of the film as well as the more violent tone. It does also have the series' best gunbarrel.

[The Shark]

I like LTK's score. It's not the best by any means, but definitely better than some i.e. Goldeneye, TMWTGG, MR.

 

Can't agree with that, especially GOLDENEYE and MOONRAKER.

[iBond]

I like LTK's score. It's not the best by any means, but definitely better than some i.e. Goldeneye, TMWTGG, MR.

Can't agree with that, especially GOLDENEYE and MOONRAKER.

Yeah, that music used during the car chase in GoldenEye really bugged me. Especially in the beginning...