OHMSS is fabulous from start to finish.
TLD was a great finale for John Barry.
I have a real soft spot for LALD.
Moonraker isn’t my favourite film but the score is gorgeous.
David Arnold was a great successor to John Barry and TLD is one of my favourite scores from any film.
A special mention to the 1967 Casino Royale for having the most 1960s score ever.
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I would honestly say that GoldenEye is the most underrated Bond soundtrack of all-time considering it was during a time in film and TV composing that synth was getting big based on the work of one Mark Snow’s X-Files and other media. I mean big orchestras are all-well and good but doing something different compared to others makes the GoldenEye score more unique compared to Berry’s and Arnold’s composings. GoldenEye itself is my favorite Bond movies of all time along side its soundtrack besides From Russia With Love and Skyfall.
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Welcome, QuartermasterForever!
I suspect Serra´s score is indeed underrated since it does generate a different feeling for GE pretty well. I’m more of a classicist in my taste for scores in general and Bond in particular. But I do enjoy the GE-score for what it is. I don’t know how much of it was left off the release. Maybe it will also be expanded by a specialty label at some point. As I understand and have read in the book on the Bond scores Martin Campbell and Serra did not get along so well when Serra refused to change parts of it. So maybe what we got is what was composed.
From my understanding, music from these sequences:
Gunbarrel and running along the dam
On board the Manticore
Bond arriving in St Petersburg
Sauna fight
Escaping from the Tiger helicopter
Definitely.
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Also the music in the church when Natalya meets Boris with Xenia.
And the movie version of the tank chase.
Both are more difficult in that they had different composers.
I think Goldeneye is going to be the last full score we get.
Top 5
1 OHMSS
2 YOLT
3 MR
4 CR
5 TB - LALD
My top 5:
OHMSS
TSWLM
CR
SF
YOLT
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A ranking? I‘m in!
My (current) top five:
- Moonraker
- You only live twice
- Live and let die
- From Russia with love
- Diamonds are forever
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Alright, I’m game for a go.
Current top 5:
- OHMSS
- YOLT
- Moonraker
- LALD
- Skyfall
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I currently have NTTD in my car constantly, so
- OHMSS
- YOLT
- TLD
- CR
- NTTD
Usually not the rankings guy, but as everyone here seems to forget about the one true masterpiece…
- CR67.
- OHMSS
- LALD
- FRWL
- TLD
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This still holds true for me.
Other soundtracks I really like are Tomorrow Never Dies, Casino Royale and No Time To Die.
The tracks where Zimmer really gets to be Zimmer knock it out of the park. I’ll Be Right Back and Opening The Doors are already two of my all time favourites. And I can’t imagine a better concluding track than Final Ascent, which amplifies an already emotional moment tenfold.
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Here’s my rankings:
- Tomorrow Never Dies
- The World Is Not Enough
- On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
- For Your Eyes Only
- Live And Let Die
- The Living Daylights
- Quantum Of Solace
- Casino Royale
- You Only Live Twice
- Diamonds Are Forever
- Thunderball
- Skyfall
- The Spy Who Loved Me
- A View To A Kill
- Goldfinger
- Octopussy
- Die Another Day
- Licence To Kill
- No Time To Die
- SPECTRE
- From Russia With Love
- Moonraker
- The Man With The Golden Gun
- Dr. No
- GoldenEye
- Never Say Never Again
Nice to see some love for FYEO. Aside from the 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" portions, the rest is really strong. I particularly like the Gunbarrel on steroids.
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FYEO and TSWLM were my first Bond soundtracks. Always loved them.
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I’ve always been intrigued by the outlier one-off Bond scores. Their success is varied for me personally, but I find each one interesting with George Martin’s LALD being the most successful for me, followed closely by Marvin Hamlisch’s TSWLM.
Smack in the middle would be Michael Kamen’s LTK score—which always sounded a bit off to me, lacking in big orchestral muscle—and Bill Conti’s FYEO, which only suffers in its incorporation of trendy 80s musical elements that serve to date it more than most (I’m mainly thinking of the music during the car chase and the ski chase).
I almost included Thomas Newman’s scores in this group as the scores to SF and SPECTRE are variations of the same score, albeit one that I really enjoyed the first time around. If he had only done SF as a true one-off it would most likely be my favorite of this bunch.
We’ll have to see if Zimmer’s score turns out to be a one-off; I suspect it will be. So, in keeping with the spirit of the thread, I like Zimmer’s score, but mainly due to its nostalgia factor and less so for its own intrinsic merits. I would say it has less character and individualism than any score in my list thus far. But it still sits head and shoulders above…
At the bottom end is Eric Serra’s GE score, which never worked for me. I have more appreciation for it now than I did upon release but still regard it as a failed experiment, though I do enjoy specific cues.
Finally, and I only hesitantly include it, but NSNA is a total miss for me on every level and the worst score of any film featuring the character of James Bond. The lack of any classical 007 motifs certainly hurts it, but I find it to be a bad score on its own, with unexciting cues and a very tinny production sound.
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Doctor No
From Russia with Love
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
For Your Eyes Only
Octopussy
The Living Daylights
Tomorrow Never Dies
The World is Not Enough
Casino Royale
I really was let down with Quantum of Solace.
I mean, Casino Royale was all about leading up to him saying The Name is Bond, James Bond. And cue the classic theme.,
but even after that’s been done, they hold the Bond theme at arm’s length as if they’re embarrassed by it and what it represents.
I hope when the next Bond film comes out, they go all-in and re-embrace the classic Bond theme for all it’s worth ( and also throw in some of John Barry’s 007 theme! (We haven’t heard that since Moonraker!)
Btw was listening to my James Bond Master playlist on shuffle in my car and Bambi and Thumper from Diamonds Are Forever came on. Now maybe it’s just cause I’m a horror fan but does anyone else get a spooky stalker/slasher movie vibe from that track?
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Yeah, I do. And it’s a good 7 years until Halloween came along!
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I think the OHMSS cues work extremely well, particularly the moment along the Italian coast. But the obvious Zimmer elements appeal to me more. Message From An Old Friend, Square Escape, Cuba Chase, I’ll Be Right Back, Opening The Doors and Final Ascent. I’m after an authentic Zimmer experience and these tracks give me that. A track that has really grown on me is Home. I found it really came to life during my theatrical screenings. Poison Garden is also similar.
I appreciate Serra’s score is an acquitted taste. Run, Shoot and Jump has a similar strength to parts of Zimmer’s work on NTTD, and I think the same is true for the second half of Dish Out Of Water.