Paltalk in association with EMI Music is hosting a live webchat with Quantum of Solace director Marc Foster. Participants of the webchat will be eligible to win some complimentary copies of The Best of Bond...James Bond album. Additional information and links are listed below. Thanks again to Jennifer B. over at EMI for the heads-up.
"Chat live with QUANTUM OF SOLACE Director Marc Forster on Paltalk.com! Ask him your questions LIVE on Thursday, October 23rd at 5:00pm New York time. For more info, visit www.paltalk.com/hollywoodnow"
The Review:
I wanted to extend a special thank you to Jennifer B. and everyone at EMI Music for helping make this review possible. This album can be purchased from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
By 1992, The James Bond franchise was in legal limbo and development of future Bond films were brought to an immediate stand still. As the lawyers worked out the details, EMI Records decided to do something special for James Bond 30th anniversary and released The Best of Bond…James Bond 30th Anniversary. A single disc edition featured cover songs from Dr. No through License To Kill, as well as secondary themes “We Have All The Time In The World” and “007”. It was the dual disc Limited Edition set that became the prized version amongst Barry/Bond collectors. While the first disc again offered cover songs from Dr. No through License To Kill, it was the second disc filled with unreleased orchestral music, song demos and radio spots that was the real treasure. Dubbed a Limited Edition, the album (as of 2008) still remains in print, which partly can be contributed to the fact that many of the licensed unreleased songs and demos still have not appeared on any other Bond albums or compilations.
EMI would maintain the rights of these James Bond cover songs and again in 1999 the label would release another Best of Bond album to tie in with Pierce Brosnan’s third James Bond outing in The World Is Not Enough. This album featured songs from “The James Bond Theme” (Monty Norman Orchestra) to “Tomorrow Never Dies”. “We Have All The Time In The World” was present, but “007” and “Surrender” would be omitted. EMI reissued Best of Bond again in 2002 and the album tracks continued with “The World Is Not Enough” and two bonus tracks. The first bonus track was first heard on the A&M Tomorrow Never Dies soundtrack and was the Moby arranged version of “The James Bond Theme”. While the Moby theme was probably not the most in-demand addition, it was the previously unreleased “James Bond Theme” arranged by Jeff Fair and Starr Parodi that was the real gem on this edition. It was their arrangement that help reintroduce fans back into the world of James Bond with the You Know His Name…You Know His Number GoldenEye trailer.
Parent company Capitol Records would not release a Best of Bond album in 2006, a curious move consider the hype surrounding Daniel Craig. Perhaps the last minute merger details between Sony and MGM was a factor in this decision, however by 2008, Capitol was ready with another release, just in time for Quantum of Solace.
“The James Bond Theme” has been the same version used on all the past EMI song compilations. The 1992 and 1999 albums credit the track as being performed by The Monty Norman Orchestra. Since 2002, the proper credit has been restored to the John Barry Orchestra. Here is a track that needs no introduction as John Barry’s definitely arrangement still makes “The James Bond Theme” one of the most popular themes in movie history.
For this release, Capitol Records returned to arranging the songs in chronological order by year. Previous albums elected to arrange the tracks in order of popularity, much to fans dismay. The laid back vocals of Matt Monro carry through “From Russia With Love”, though John Barry’s instrumental from the films opening is not included. The presentation of the “Goldfinger” theme, which was performed by Shirley Bassey always sounded like a flat recording. Perhaps this was the limitations of the technology at the time, which would be rectified for the films successor, “Thunderball”. Tom Jones would do the honor of performing the title after Dionne Warwick and Shirley Bassey each got their Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang themes rejected. A demo featuring different lyrics and music for “You Only Live Twice” appeared on the 30th Anniversary limited edition and was performed by Julie Rodgers. That theme also was rejected and the films final theme song was performed by Nancy Sinatra against a very lush arrangement of strings.
Adapting the title of “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” was apparently a problem for John Barry and instead he chose to open the film with a now well known horn and synthesizer piece. Purists who insist that a Bond movie should have a vocal theme probably would consider “We Have All The Time In The World” as that theme. A memorable performance by the late Louis Armstrong, the theme would become a symbolic melody representing the love story between Bond and Tracy. This was a wise move by Capitol to continue to include both for completest sake.
“Diamonds Are Forever” is a very lush theme with its attractive orchestral arrangement and sexy lyrics, which ironically caused a bit of a tiff between John Barry and Bond producer Harry Saltzman. This caused Barry to bow out of the next installment and open the door for Paul McCartney and Wings to come in and perform one of the most successful Bond songs of the franchise. George Martin would conduct “Live and Let Die” and later be handed scoring duties on the film in Barry’s absence.
John Barry would return to score “The Man With The Golden Gun” and he would bring along Don Black to write the lyrics. The theme would be performed by Lulu and largely became the black sheep amongst the other Bond themes. John Barry’s score would also become unmemorable, and his reasoning for this was the rather chaotic post production schedule that left him little time to write the score. Marvin Hamlisch would have greater success with his co-composed song for The Spy Who Loved Me. Carole Bayer Sager suggested the playful lyrics of “Nobody Does It Better” and with the help of vocals by Carly Simon the song would become another hit in the James Bond cannon.
John Barry retuned again in 1979 for “Moonraker”, bringing with him Bond veterans Hal David and Shirley Bassey to help with the song. While the United Artist LP and Capitol Records CD offers only part of Barry’s score, what it did offer was two versions of the “Moonraker” theme. Shirley Bassey would perform a slow, lushly romantic ballet for the films opening theme. A slightly dated, but still fun techno “Moonraker” arrangement would close out the film, but sadly that version has never been heard outside of its album soundtrack. “For Your Eyes Only” would outlive the often criticized score by Bill Conti (an opinion not shared by this reviewer) and it’s easy to see why. From the lovely on screen appearance of Sheena Easton and her vocals to match, the song has remained popular and earned Conti and Oscar nomination.
Follow his departure from Diamonds Are Forever, John Barry would develop an on and off relationship with the James Bond films. He returned for Octopussy and would stay with the franchise until his retirement in 1987. Adapting Octopussy into workable lyrics was out of the question and with the help of lyricists Tim Rice, the two crafted the laid back theme “All Time High” with soothing vocals by Rita Coolidge. While “Live And Let Die” was a chart record breaker for Bond, it would be the Duran Duran title song “A View To A Kill” that would be the all time chart topper. Barry would work closely with band members and provide guidance on how to compose a song that would blend nicely with a traditional orchestral.
The Norwegian band a-ha was chosen to sing “The Living Daylights” in the hope that the formula used to make the Duran Duran song so commercially successful would carry over in the films successor. John Barry’s experience with the members of the band would be less than enjoyable and resulted in The Living Daylights score being his final swan song. Michael Kamen would composer the score for “License To Kill”, but song composing duties would be handed off to Narada Michael Walden, Jeffrey Cohen and Walter Afanasieff. Glady Knight would perform the song in a similar fashion to Shirley Bassey earlier themes. The song itself has become a sort of spiritual successor to many of the early classic themes.
Tina Turner would musically bring James Bond into the 90’s with her theme for “GoldenEye”. Bono and the Edge wrote into the song some subtle use of traditional orchestral elements as well as some modern rock electronics. Eric Serra would composer the films score, but his industrial sound would not be as welcomed, though years later some fans have begun to warm up to the score. David Arnold would step up to the composer podium and write a very Barry influenced score for the 1997 film Tomorrow Never Dies. Working with veteran Bond lyricists Don Black, the two compose a title theme that was heavily inspired by the classic Bond sounds of the 60’s. KD. Lang would perform the song “Surrender”, which ultimately got demoted to the films end credits leaving Sheryl Crow to perform the newly composer “Tomorrow Never Dies” song. Due to favoritism between the two songs, Capitol wisely provides them both sequentially.
David Arnold and Don Black would finally get their chance again at composing a title theme and in 1999 their theme for The World Is Not Enough stuck. “The World Is Not Enough” is really an awesome Bond title theme, with David Arnold meshing his orchestral with the bands natural rock style. Shirley Manson provides the main vocals for the song while her band co-members provided backup guitar. The song won over many Bond fans and critics, though Arnold’s originally planned end title song was rejected in favor of a supped up version of The James Bond Theme.
Madonna would lend her vocals to the 2002 film, “Die Another Day”. Her techno infused song was practically unlistenable and offered very little by way of style or character. The vocals were simple and plain and the only positive comments one could make was the nicely arranged strings in the background. David Arnold was unable to use any of Madonna’s song in his score and three versions of “Die Another Day” would end up making it into the film, with Madonna herself gracing the screen in a nice cameo appearance.
Things turned around when David Arnold collaborated with Audioslave lead singer and songwriter Chris Cornell to create an orchestral rock and roll theme for the 2006 film, Casino Royale. Cornell’s song was quite effective in the films stylish (a first for Danny Kleinman) opening sequence and David Arnold would use interpolations of his song through the body of his score, a musical trademark of the Bond franchise. The song would be absent from the official Casino Royale soundtrack at Cornell’s request, and this release marks the first Bond specific appearance outside of the artist’s single. “You Know My Name” presented on this album is not the version used in the film and instead appears to be the same version heard on the Chris Cornell Casino Royale single.
The final track of the album is one that has sparked the most pre-release interest amongst the Bond soundtrack community. The title is simply “The James Bond Theme” and is arranged by John Arnold. John Arnold is not a common name to film music industry and his Myspace page reveals that he is an up and coming artist who specializes in electronic jazzy music. Presented here is a two minute long synthesized techno version of “The James Bond Theme” and initial impressions instantly brought back memories of the Tommy Tollarico video game score for Tomorrow Never Dies, a score that was heavily criticized. Needless to say this track offers very little by way of “bonus” content and some could even find its inclusion insulting. I can only comment that this is one piece of music I won’t miss when it is left off of future Best of Bond albums and John Arnold must have won a contest or something, but definitely not for this piece of music. <sample offered below>. To John Arnold’s credit, some of the tracks on his website are more enjoyable.
For the first time since 1992, EMI Capitol offers up a Best of Bond album in two flavors. The edition that will be the most appealing for enthusiasts is the CD+DVD Limited Edition which offers the above track listing along with a second disc containing DVD content.
The DVD is an actual playable DVD, complete with menus. Contained on the disc are five music videos from James Bond films: A View To A Kill, For Your Eyes Only, GoldenEye, The Living Daylights and Octopussy. These music videos were first made available mainstream on the 1999/2000 Bond Special Edition DVDs. Ten years after recording her landmark song for Goldfiner, Shirley Bassey reunited with the theme and performed it live at the Royal Albert Hall. While not a true music video, it was a nice little addition, even though the performance was a bit rough in her attitude towards the song.
The last remaining feature on the DVD is a documentary called “The Bond Sound – The Music of 007”. This documentary first appeared on the A View To A Kill DVD and was directed by Ian Fleming Foundation alumni, John Cork. The documentary was terrific when it was produced in 2000 and still holds up pretty well today. Many of the Bond composers, song writers and performers are interviewed (including the late Michael Kamen) and films up to The World Is Not Enough are covered. Since this was a rehash from the previous DVD, it would have been nice if this edition of the DVD offered films beyond The World Is Not Enough. Interestingly enough, other music videos from the post GoldenEye films (including Casino Royale) are not included.
Capitol packages this CD+DVD combo in a standard 2CD jewel case. The limited edition features a blue cardboard slip jacket which offers a nice image of James Bond and the gun barrel. Removing the slip jacket reveals the red artwork of the liner booklet. The eight page liner booklet offers some very sparse copyright and credit information about each track with the two center pages devoted just to images of the 21 official film movie posters. The back cover image of the booklet contains the “flaming girl” teaser poster used during The World Is Not Enough marketing campaign. A mockup of the gun barrel coats each CD and the jewel case tray has additional copyright credits for the DVD content. While the booklet is not as informative as past releases, the artwork still remains distinctively pleasing….distinctively Bond. The small price difference between the two editions makes the purchase of this album a no brainer. The DVD content for the most part is nothing new, but having great original songs and some highlighted music videos in one place makes this a nice package. The albums runtime is a close 79 minutes and the addition of the John Arnold theme added just a bit of unnecessary filer. Having all the officially preformed theme songs in one place makes this album a winner, regardless of how many times its been reissued.
4 ½ out of 5.
Track Listing:
The Best Of Bond… James Bond (CD, CD/DVD, Digital Album)
1. “James Bond Theme” - John Barry Orchestra
2. “From Russia With Love” - Matt Monro
3. “Goldfinger” - Shirley Bassey
4. “Thunderball” - Tom Jones
5. “You Only Live Twice” – Nancy Sinatra
6. “On Her Majesty's Secret Service” - John Barry Orchestra
7. “We Have All The Time In The World” - Louis Armstrong
8. “Diamonds Are Forever” - Shirley Bassey
9. “Live & Let Die” - Paul McCartney and Wings
10. “Man With The Golden Gun” – Lulu
11. “Nobody Does It Better” - Carly Simon
12. “Moonraker” - Shirley Bassey
13. “For Your Eyes Only” - Sheena Easton
14. “All Time High” - Rita Coolidge
15. “A View To A Kill” - Duran Duran
16. “The Living Daylights” - A-Ha
17. “Licence To Kill” - Gladys Knight
18. “GoldenEye” - Tina Turner
19. “Tomorrow Never Dies” - Sheryl Crow
20. “Surrender” - kd lang
21. “The World Is Not Enough” – Garbage
22. “Die Another Day” – Madonna
23. “You Know My Name” – Chris Cornell
Bonus Track
24. “James Bond Theme” - John Arnold (previously unreleased)
DVD
1. “A View To A Kill” - Duran Duran (music video)
2. “For Your Eyes Only” - Sheena Easton (music video)
3. “GoldenEye” - Tina Turner (music video)
4. “The Living Daylights” - A-Ha (music video)
5. “All Time High” - Rita Coolidge (music video)
6. “Goldfinger” – Shirley Bassey (Live at Royal Albert Hall, 1974)
7. Documentary: “The Music Of James Bond”
Edited by agent007jb, 22 October 2008 - 11:43 PM.
