1942 replies to this topic

[PPK_19]

The pre-titles sequence is meant to be the biggest and most audacious attempt in any Bond film-or film ever made- so looking on the bright side perhaps SS's song will calm all our hearts down back to 60bpm and fit in perfectly. At least, that's what I'm hoping. I know Kleinman's visuals will be mesmerising, the man is a genius

[Bryce (003)]

Well....Here we are. 

 

For me...It just doesn't do it. I've given it a good dozen listens. The melody and orchestrations will lend itself to the score in many respects IMO, but this is just not what I expected. It just never seems to take off and is not what I want following what looks to be a great PTS. It seems more suited to follow the PTS in SF. 

 

Now, this is (clearly) my take as a Bond fan of over four decades. Smith's music and sound isn't my cuppa, but he is a fine artist and very talented. 

 

It *may* grow on me, but after a listen (or twelve on repeat slugging through afternoon traffic) I flipped to my own track of all the title tracks. All of their time certainly and even the slower ballads (YOLT, NDIB, MR, ATH, TND) which may have initially felt out of place, had that "something" that said Bond. There's nothing beyond the opening chords that implies Bond. The lyrics are fine, but if the word "spectre" had just shown up once or been incorporated let alone a bit of the Bond theme, it could have worked.

 

Maybe I'll swing around in the heat of the moment during the MTS, but I'm just feeling a bit bummed about it.

 

As to the masses and Smith's fans, they may love it and that's fine. I'm no musician, but I am a Bond fan and accustomed to taking the "rough with the smooth" in regards to the series. With this, I guess I'll just take it "straight...No chaser"....

 

and whatever I'm taking...Better make it a double. 

 

[Harmsway]

Sure Jack Black's Another Way To Die is farrrr from perfect, but even that at least had some edge and took a risk or two. This is a desperate, undeniably cynical bid to the Adele audience, hoping they'll buy in. It makes the derided QoS theme seem like the heady heights of themology.

This, and I'd also add Die Another Day (but then I'm one of its few defenders).

Yep. DAD's song gets a bad rap.

[The Shark]

Falsetto?  Really?  Hmph!

 

Morten Harket sang The Living Daylights's bridge in falsetto ("Comes the morning..."). It's just a technique, but in the wrong hands...

 

I'm with Martin Ware. "It's an ersatz insult to all the great falsetto voices."

[scaramunga]

I didn't care for the song or vocals.
Not sure how it will be better with the titles.

I have enjoyed all of the themes in the series thus far but this one misses the mark.

Call david Bowie next time! They spent enough on the film and should've had a top notch / legend singing the title song.

[Harmsway]

I don't blame them for wanting someone more current than Bowie. But it's also true that they've had an extremely mixed track record when hiring chart-toppers.

[plankattack]

Not a fan of Smith, and as many have said, it's very much a "Smith" song. And someone's (Odd Jobbies, maybe?) assertion that it all feels far too "Adele-warmed-over" has a got point. That's always been genetic EON behavior - to go back to the well, so to speak, and I hope that not's the case for the whole film. I like AWTD because it's not like all the others, and while I not a fan of DAD, the fact that it's unique is one thing going for it.

That said, while I haven't taken to this one, hopefully I'll feel differently about it when I hear Newman's soundtrack and how/if, it finds it way in there.

For the moment, thumbs-down from me I'm afraid (though I felt the same way about Bassey's MR and over time, I've come to really appreciate that one, so we'll see....).

[sharpshooter]

I can see the 'million shards of glass that haunt me from my past' segment being utilised by Kleinman. Perhaps in the GF/OHMSS flashback style.

[Blofeld's Cat]

As a stand alone song it's a 4/10.

 

As an instrumental it's an 7/10 (by using vocal reduction prog).

 

As heard with the title credits it'll hopefully be a 10/10.

[bill007]

 

Falsetto?  Really?  Hmph!

 

Morten Harket sang The Living Daylights's bridge in falsetto ("Comes the morning..."). It's just a technique, but in the wrong hands...

 

I'm with Martin Ware. "It's an ersatz insult to all the great falsetto voices."

 

 

Technique.  Agreed.   To be used as a tool to accentuate a word, or a line.  But this Sam Smith guy practically does the whole song using it.

As an instrumental it's an 7/10 (by using vocal reduction prog).

I agree.  The music fits the bill.  The vocals are what murders it.

[Trevelyan 006]

I enjoy the song, for the most part. The overall tone and orchestral elements are absolutely fantastic. I'm not exactly sold on the lyrics and vocals, though. 

 

It's a passing grade from me. I look forward to seeing how the song ties into the title sequence!

[Professor Pi]

I voted that I liked it, though that was a switch from my first impression.

 

If this were a duet, with a female singing the chorus, or if a female sang the song, it's perfectly serviceable.  But with a male singer, it's lacking that balls to the wall bombast of the Bondian choruses of Thunderball, Live and Let Die, and You Know My Name.  The verses and lyrics have the proper buildup, but then the chorus just limps out. 

 

Bond ballads resonate with one at some point in life--not just the vintage classics from Carly Simon, Nancy Sinatra, Louis Armstrong and Sheena Easton, but also Moonraker and All Time High, at least for me. But the bigger Bond title themes--Goldfinger, A View to a Kill, MWTGG, and even Die Another Day--aren't meant to relate to, they're meant to boldly proclaim BOND!  On that count, Writing's on the Wall belongs to the former category.

 

If this song is used the way We Have All the Time in the World was in OHMSS and we have an instrumental title sequence, that'd be perfectly fine.  This could work as an end title song.  But I was still hoping for a big, bold Tom Jones-ish title song, "SPECTRE".

 

But it's disappointing that I'm finding the video game songs--Mya's Everything or Nothing, Joss Stone's I'll Take It All--and the alternate QoS songs "No Good About Goodbye" by Shirley Bassey and Eva Almer's "Forever-I'm All Yours" far more interesting than the new official Bond song.

 

So we now have Sam Smith but are still missing what titles could have been from David Bowie, Sade, Kim Wilde, Gloria Estefan, Celine Dion, Radiohead--I even would have liked to see what Nicole Scherzinger might have done.

Edited by Professor Pi, 26 September 2015 - 05:37 AM.

[thecasinoroyale]

3rd time listening and still not winning me over. Lyrically it's a good composition, but vocally it disappoints in a very "wimpy" effort.

 

The best part is STILL the seconds where there is haunting power and passion in the lyrics "If I risk it all, will you break our fall?" That bit is magic.

[Solex Agitator]

The employ of falsetto is overused. The falsetto is leaned on so heavily that it has no "wow" or "release" factor by the time the weak chorus arrives. The falsetto feels like the over-singing vocal acrobatics one might find on Star Search.  The lyrics, too, are so very on-the-nose. The rhyme scheme, likewise, is pedestrian.

 

Perhaps there will be a different mix of the song in the film ala Casino Royale's "You Know My Name." Instrumentally, it is merely acceptable.

Edited by Solex Agitator, 26 September 2015 - 06:52 AM.

[SecretAgentFan]

My local newspaper - big for this region - has a big story on "Writing´s on the wall", calling it the best Bond song since "Nobody does it better".

 

I wouldn´t go that far.  But I woke up with the melody in my head, and listening to it again now, I really, really love this one.

 

It probably was bound to be controversial due to Sam Smith.  But that was, I assume, an intentional provocation.  

 

For me, it paid off beautifully.

[jamie00007]

A day later and it hasn't grown on me. Just the opposite. I just don't think it's a good song in its own right, and just terrible as a Bond theme.

Say what you will about Another Way To Die but at least it had some life to it and was instantly recognisable in instrumental form in that Coke ad. Just can't see anyone making an ad with car chases, fights and Bond girls to an instrumental version of this thing.

Edited by jamie00007, 26 September 2015 - 07:38 AM.

[tdalton]

I just don't think it's a good song in its own right, and just terrible as a Bond theme.

Couldn't agree more.

I've tried to give it another chance, but the song just grates on the ears. As bad as AWTD is, as others have already said, at least it has some kind of energy behind it. I mean, I'm all for the more low-key Bond songs (I love Sheena Easton's "For Your Eyes Only"), but this song just doesn't get the job done.

[marktmurphy]

I do hope that Newman uses it in the score as there is a very nice melody there (or rather several nice melodies), it's just too start-stop to work as a song and sequences which should have lasted a line (for example the Earth Song bit) get stretched to three or four lines.

[Guy Haines]

I do hope that Newman uses it in the score as there is a very nice melody there (or rather several nice melodies), it's just too start-stop to work as a song and sequences which should have lasted a line (for example the Earth Song bit) get stretched to three or four lines.

I agree. The tune would work within the score, but the falsetto lines do go on a bit.

I'm getting more and more used to it, but I repeat, for me the test will be how it works with the film's titles.

The line about "shards of glass" - I too can envisage them in the title sequence, with images from Craig Bond's previous missions included - particularly showing characters such as Vesper who died after becoming involved with 007.

[deth]

I do hope that Newman uses it in the score as there is a very nice melody there (or rather several nice melodies), it's just too start-stop to work as a song and sequences which should have lasted a line (for example the Earth Song bit) get stretched to three or four lines.

 

 

Upon repeated listenings the song has grown on me a little (I may be force-feeding myself though). I feel like the instrumental tone of it would work with a score by Newman (and I wouldn't be surprised to learn he had a hand in writing this). It's really the kind of song that needs the title sequence along with it... and I suspect we won't be as harsh on it after seeing it in that context.

[Odd Jobbies]

I couldn't even make it to the three minute mark.

 

As a review that comment is probably as bad as it can get for a Bond theme and chimes with my first experience of the track. Like all of us i've been waiting in earnest to hear the track and in the past even those i'm not so fond of (TWINE and DAD) have held my attention until the end on first listen.

 

For WOTW i'd downloaded from itunes and, sat alone in an edit suite, door closed, assured of no interruption, i was ready to finally hear the track. I'd guess that it was around the second chorus my hatred of the wimpy effort assaulting my eardrums had subsided, because it was some time after the track had finished that i realise that i had stopped listening and had instead turned back to my Avid to work on the programme i was cutting.

 

Of course i swivelled away from the Avid in horror, feeling guilty that i'd drifted away from WOTW; no matter what my initial opinion i'd expected to be 'present' for it's inaugural performance until the end of the track!

 

So i persevered, forcing my self to give it my undivided attention until its end. It took several attempts to stay fully engaged all the way through (i assure you that i don't suffer from ADHD) and after this gruelling test of mind-ever-bordem there's no doubt for me that this is indeed a feeble effort - in fact the feeblest in the canon by some stretch.

 

At least those i don't like still retain 'Bond-appeal', meaning i'd much rather listen to 'bad-Bond' than the crap that populates the pop charts (these days known as The X-Factor). But with this track...i don't see a difference. This has no Bond appeal.

 

You must understand the dizzying lengths the boundaries of my tastes will stretch to in order to convince myself that a Bond tune is good; the self-deception i'm capable of in order to like something 'Bond'. But not this time.

 

Of course the opera of the opening credits visuals will provide a much needed crutch for this malnourished song and will fool some into believing the song itself is a grower. The same boost will be provided be Newman's use of it's melody and motifs in the score. But all those added values will be forgotten over time as the track is left to stand on it's own feet, side-by-side with Bassey, Macartney, Jones and Adele over the coming years and i believe it will not age too well.

[Ace Roberts]

This song has the nasty habit of growing on you after multiple listenings.  I was not a fan at first, but I can easily visualize this with the title credits and in context with what I think the theme of the film is.  IMO - I think this will become a huge hit for Smith and will (in fact) bring younger fans to SPECTRE.

[Navy007Fan]

For those wondering what this sounds like sung by a woman:

 

[DamnCoffee]

There's just no build up or anything. It's just flat all the way through. You know sometimes, you just can't understand why? Why did this happen?

[Harmsway]

For those wondering what this sounds like sung by a woman:

Ugh. That's even worse.

[Odd Jobbies]

There's just no build up or anything. It's just flat all the way through. You know sometimes, you just can't understand why? Why did this happen?

There's a pattern.

 

YKMN = success, so they try to replicate that with another rock tune. When that misfires they about-turn back to the ballad with Adele. That's a hit, so just as they did following YKMN they try to replicate that hit. They likely tried to get Adele and settled for Smith.

 

The vast majority of opinion here says that just like AWTD it's undoubtably another misfire. It seems they opt for repetition over new direction, an unimaginative methodology of chasing their own tail that's not working out well for Craig's run.

[Vauxhall]

Smith said in an interview yesterday he was impressed when he heard the orchestration, suggesting he had little to do with it. Imagine how weak it could have been without that to lift it.

I listened to it back-to-back with Skyfall earlier. That jarred even more.

[sharpshooter]

There's just no build up or anything. It's just flat all the way through. You know sometimes, you just can't understand why? Why did this happen?

I know what you mean. They've had all the time in the world to craft a really good song, and they've settled for something so-so like this. Smith said he wrote the thing in 20 minutes - I think that answers some questions the detractors have.

[Harmsway]

Smith said in an interview yesterday he was impressed when he heard the orchestration, suggesting he had little to do with it. Imagine how weak it could have been without that to lift it.

No kidding.

I'm disappointed that EON/Mendes settled for this limp song. Lord knows that they had enough time to give critical feedback or to find someone else.

[SecretAgentFan]

... but couldn´t this operatic, melancholic song sung by someone whose voice alternates between powerful and childlike be EXACTLY what the film will be about?

 

Just a thought...