21 replies to this topic

[S K Y F A L L]

I'm curious what is considered the worst theme song? DAD? QOS? Please share. I'd go with QOS.

[When In Egypt]

The general public consensus seems to be Quantum Of Solace.  

 

None of the songs are genuinely terrible, though, but I'd personally go with The World Is Not Enough (turgid), Quantum Of Solace (a racket) and Die Another Day (in one ear, out the other).

 

The worst lyrics of any of the songs must surely belong to The Man With The Golden Gun.  They sound like they were written by a competition winner.  Cracking tune, though, so it could never be at the bottom.

[Mr_Wint]

Quantum of Solace and Die Another Day are definitely the worst. I not even sure if it is ever possible to go that low again. Sure, I said the same thing after DAD, but no, QOS is a tough one to beat.

 

A few others that I am not too crazy about:

Live and Let Die (So silly and stupid song. Maybe more appropriate for Bond during his college years)

A View To A Kill / The Living Daylights (Terrible artists. Blame MGM/EON, not Barry)

Licence To Kill (funky, silly lyrics)

You Know My Name (so much potenial, ruined by the singer and the anti-Bond arrangement)

 

Then we have few songs that someone else might mention here, but they are actually better than you think:

Moonraker, All Time High, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough

[Bond of Steele]

I'm not a fan of Thunderball and All Time High.   Those would be the ones I'd try to change up.  I always thought they should have used Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, but understand why they thought there would be confusion in the UK and US.  

 

Honorable, er, unhonorable mention to For Your Eyes Only.  

 

Other than that, I enjoy the rest, some more than others....

[Vauxhall]

DIE ANOTHER DAY complements the film very well - i.e. it's a mess.

[Guy Haines]

Die Another Day? Well, if nothing else it fits in with what's going on during the title credits, if you know what I mean.

 

Another Way To Die - might have worked better with Alicia Keys on vocals and Jack White sticking to the drums.

 

"When I was young".... to coin a phrase, I wasn't keen on Live And Let Die. I've revised my opinion now. On the other hand, I welcomed The Man With The Golden Gun - thank goodness, John Barry's back! - but in retrospect it's a pretty "ho hum" theme. Not even John Barry thought his work on TMWTGG was his best.

 

And now I'm going to commit heresy. I like Nobody Does It Better as a song, and it is by no means the worst in the series, but it has never quite worked for me as a James Bond theme.  A Bond theme, like a Bond film, has got to have a bit of the dramatic, and NDIB lacks that element, I think. It's a nice, upbeat, major key tune - take the film's title out of the lyric and it would work well as a romantic ballad - but a Bond theme needs quite a bit of the minor key in it as well.

[Orion]

Surprising amount of hate for Another Way To DIe, quite like it myself, but then, much like Chris Cornell, it's very much Jack White's own style, something I'm quite fond of. I would actually buy music by Chris Cornell and Jack White outside of their Bond themes (and indeed have)

The only theme I actively despised (and this may get me lynched) is All Time High with it's porn jazz style and lyrics that Rita Coolidge seems to struggle to get out in time with the music. It's also horrendously dull and boring with very little change in the monotonous small collection of notes (it isn't far from sounding like Ted and Dougal's version of My Lovely Horse in Father Ted for those who've seen it) and I do find myself at times nodding off when I hear it.

 

[S K Y F A L L]

I don't understand why they couldn't just pick one artist for QOS.

[Mr_Wint]

I remember David Arnold talking about AWTD, saying something like: “… what’s intriguing about it was the idea that… Why would those two ever get together?”

 

And here we are 6 years later, still asking the same question :lol

[tdalton]

For me, it's a toss up amongst the following:

 

• "The Man with the Golden Gun"
• "All Time High"
• "Die Another Day"
• "Another Way to Die"
• "Skyfall"

[Hockey Mask]

AVTAK is horrid. But DAD is worse.

[Binyamin]

This thread has reminded me of how mediocre -- and often, complete crap -- most Bond theme songs actually are...

...Which is kind of odd, since the movies have such a strong and unique connection to pop music. Every time a new film is announced, the title performer speculation and unveiling is big news.

Looking back, though, it's been hit and miss... and arguably, mostly miss.

[plankattack]

This thread has reminded me of how mediocre -- and often, complete crap -- most Bond theme songs actually are...

Though to be fair, nearly any song written for a film (honorable exceptions would be The Graduate soundtrack - god, I'm showing my age!!!) seems to suffer this affliction. Stealing existing songs seems to be more successful in films in general, though I found it quite jarring to hear London Calling in DAD....

But a song is a "Bond" thing though isn't it? I'm sure if CBn had existed in '69, there would be considerable gnashing in the forums that "OHMSS isn't really Bond 'cos there's no song at the start!" It is curious why so many them are mediocre. Having to fit lyric around films to do with an indestructible secret agent, space shuttles, shoot em up bang bangs, powerful weapons, all time highs and living daylights does run contrary to the majority of popular music these days.

All that said, I actually like Jack Black and Ms Keys banging it out, so my vote goes to Madonna's monstrosity, and a second place to A-Ha.

[DaveBond21]

I believe DAD is the worst, and QOS a close second. I don't really dislike any of them.

 

Shirley Bassey's "No Good About Goodbye" should have been the theme to QOS since it features in the movie itself.

[RedsBaron]

Die Another Day.

[Walecs]

 

This thread has reminded me of how mediocre -- and often, complete crap -- most Bond theme songs actually are...

Though to be fair, nearly any song written for a film (honorable exceptions would be The Graduate soundtrack - god, I'm showing my age!!!) seems to suffer this affliction. Stealing existing songs seems to be more successful in films in general, though I found it quite jarring to hear London Calling in DAD....

But a song is a "Bond" thing though isn't it? I'm sure if CBn had existed in '69, there would be considerable gnashing in the forums that "OHMSS isn't really Bond 'cos there's no song at the start!" It is curious why so many them are mediocre. Having to fit lyric around films to do with an indestructible secret agent, space shuttles, shoot em up bang bangs, powerful weapons, all time highs and living daylights does run contrary to the majority of popular music these days.

All that said, I actually like Jack Black and Ms Keys banging it out, so my vote goes to Madonna's monstrosity, and a second place to A-Ha.

 

 

Regarding lyrics, most of Bond themes are certainly cheesy. But musically-wise, few of them are terrible.

[Mr_Wint]

This thread has reminded me of how mediocre -- and often, complete crap -- most Bond theme songs actually are...

...Which is kind of odd, since the movies have such a strong and unique connection to pop music. Every time a new film is announced, the title performer speculation and unveiling is big news.

Looking back, though, it's been hit and miss... and arguably, mostly miss.

I am a little bit worried what you mean with "hit", if you think they have a strong and unique connection to pop music.
The Bond themes have created a genre by themselves, and they are completely unique in the film music world. Their sole purpose is to complement and enhance the movie experience, IMO.

[When In Egypt]

I must say, I'm a bit taken aback by all these Bond fans with long lists of "crap" Bond themes, especially the ones which include solid gold classics!

[S K Y F A L L]

That's my falt, I could have used a better title for the thread: Least popular theme song, Least Favorite, etc.

 

Its the newer themes that haven't grown on me yet:

 

TWINE - Was Garbage even that popular at the time? I never understood there choice. I didn't mind the course.

 

DAD - 3 years after Madonna did the theme for Austin Powers The Spy Who Shagged Me the producers picked her for DAD? Why? I guess her career is some what like the 007 series, continuously reinventing themselves but what about Celion Deon? Guess they wanted something that went with the mess of a film they made.

 

QOS - I would have just liked Keys to do it herself but whatever.

 

SF - Compared to the other Adele singles SF blows, let it crumble.

[plankattack]

To be fair, I only find Madonna's to be real dross, and to agree with Sky, I don't think there was a notion than many of the songs were crap - more, least favorite.

All that said, it's curious that other than Bassey, how many other songs are regarded as anywhere near the artist's best? Wings, perhaps, maybe an argument for Sheena Easton. For example, I love You Only Live Twice (as much as Robbie Williams!!), yet I'm sure that if you brought up Sinatra's name in a music conversation, any mention of her doing a Bond theme would be buried well under "These Boots are made for Walking."

I like Garbage's effort a lot, but agreed, it's nowhere near their best track. Tina Turner, Tom Jones, Sheryl Crow, probably the same thing.

The true exception seems to be Bassey, where her rendition of Goldinger sits up there with the like of Big Spender on her discography. Is there something about how songs for films are even regarded - does the fact that a song is known more by the film it's from hurt its rep?

Take two songs that have appeared a lot in the posts above, DAD and AWTD. Would we think differently of Madonna's electro-pop effort if it wasn't affiliated with a film? Is it really much worse than "Music" from two years before? I know for me, part of why I hate DAD is that it's on the front of the film. In isolation, I'm not sure I would have such a strong feeling. If Jack Black collaborated with Keys on an album would it raise that many eyebrows if it was only ever part of that album and not on a Bond soundtrack?

Anyone?

[dtuba]

For me it's DAD, hands down. it is a terrible song regardless of the movie it is associated with. All that "Sigmund Freud" nonsense, Blech.

 

Second worst for me would be Sheryl Crow's TND. Not a terrible song but so,so inferior to Surrender that it seems like even Mikey & Babs are ashamed of the fact that the wrong song is in the front of the film. 

 

Bland but not awful: All time High (It's Barry so I like it) Goldeneye and LTK.

 

Another Way to Die: Like the film itself, I find this one to be a decent song that could have been so, so much better. The instrumental track is great (it is almost like an inverted version of the JB theme, if you listen carefully). Alicia Keyes adds nothing to this song except some really bad vocal ad-libs ("shoot em up, bang bang...yikes). Why did Jack White not do this one solo, or with his buddy Brendan Benson in the Raconteurs?

 

Like all the rest, really.

[Grard Bond]

QoS is for me the worst song. It doesn't work as a song and not in the movie itself.

DaD is not great either, but somehow works with the titles shown on the screen.

Golden Gun has the worst lyrics indeed. I mean for example: "In the next room of this very one, the man with the golden gun!"