Lord Nicholson
El Supremo
- May 30, 2011
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How would you describe/explain the sound of Bond themes to someone?
There's a distinct sound to them, but I can't really articulate it.
Strong brass and strings sections, which really comes from John Barry's jazz background more than anything. It was really defined by "Goldfinger", then "Thunderball" is very much a clone of that. Those elements are prevalent in "Diamonds Are Forever", "The Man With the Golden Gun", "A View to a Kill", and "The Living Daylights", which were all co-written by Barry; in the case of the latter two those elements are interwoven with a sound that is still very much at home with Duran Duran and a-ha respectively. "Licence to Kill", "GoldenEye", "The World is Not Enough", "Another Way to Die" and of course "Skyfall" are all overt attempts to emulate this style. Many of these songs also have strains of the James Bond theme in them, or in the case of "Licence to Kill" it literally lifts the horn line straight from "Goldfinger". "You Know My Name" is a bit more muted in its use of these elements, the brass is used as more of an undertone. For a great example of the elements in isolation, good to look at the only instrumental title sequence post-Goldfinger:
OHMSS has the added distinctive sounds of the Moog and kidney-puncturing bass.
Sometimes it's just strings - "You Only Live Twice" is the template for these more ballad-y kind of songs, again it's Barry's style of strings, which typically populate the films' soundtracks. "Moonraker", "All Time High" and Sam Smith's "Writing's on the Wall" are in this vein.
The outliers are straightforward pop songs - "Nobody Does It Better" which is just a great song anyway so it doesn't need the overt elements, ditto for "For Your Eyes Only" where Conti's heavy piano sound replaces the brass, I guess.
That leaves you with "Tomorrow Never Dies" which thinks it can get away with piano and a nice little guitar line but falls completely flat because it's utter s**t and Crow is for some reason singing about "See Your Eeyore Eyes", and "Die Another Day" which doesn't warrant dialogue.