Top 5 Tracks of the Other Composers (1973, '77, '81, '89, '95)

So the other Bond composer's. Curious isn't it that these chaps only ever did the one. So this would be the scores for George Martin, Marvin Hamlisch, Bill Conti, Michael Kamen and Eric Serra.

Kamen will be tricky because of how the original release is so I might bend the parameters for say e.g "PTS" or some such.

This'll be tough:

Martin:

1. Bond Meets Solitaire
2. Boat Chase
3. Whisper Who Dares
4. Trespassers Will Be Eaten
5. Gunbarrel

Marvin Hamlisch
1. Bond 77
2. Bond Arrives in Sardinia (love the accordion!)
3. Mojave Club

(Overall, just not a fan!)

Bill Conti
1. Ski...Shoot...Jump
2. Runaway
3. Drive In The Country
4. Cortina
5. Gonzales Takes A Dive

(This was especially hard. The top 5 are really interchangeable with about 7 others).

Michael Kamen
1. Casino
2. Bond Theme
3. Felix's Files
4. Bond and Lupe
5. Nighttime Incursion

Eric Serra
1. It's What Keeps You Alone
2. GoldenEye Overture
3. We Share The Same Passions
4. Run Shoot Jump
5. Whispering Statues

(This one was also very hard to pick because there's so much of Serra's score I like. Thankfully Whispering Statues and GoldenEye overture tends to roll a few together!)

If I was to pick 5 overall from all of the above... I'll need to think about that.

Nice choices Fields. Hamlisch's score is a tricky one to choose even a couple. I'll have to get looking at mine.

Live and Let Die

1. Boat Chase
2. Bond Meets Solitaire
3. Bond to New York
4. Whisper Who Dares
5. Solitaire Gets Her Cards

The Spy Who Loved Me

1. Ride to Atlantis
2. The Tanker
3. Bond '77
[N/A] not much choice for 4-5

For Your Eyes Only

1. Runaway
2. Drive in the Country
3. Run, Shoot, Jump
4. Submarine
5. Sub vs Sub

(honourable mention to "Run Them Down/The Climb")

Licence To Kill

1. Licence Revoked
2. Cutting Overheads/Bond Escapes in Tanker
3. Escape from Wavekrest/Felix's Files
4. Gunbarrel/Radar Alert
5. I Want Sanchez Alive/Shootout

GoldenEye

1. Run, Shoot and Jump
2. Tank Chase around St. Petersburg
3. Goldeneye Overture
4. Dish Out of Water
5. The Severnaya Suite

Heh, our LALD/FYEO choices are pretty similar. Submarine and The Climb I could have easily swapped into my top 5. And Goodbye Countess. And the PTS music. And Melina's Revenge (but since it pops up in Gonzales Takes A Dive, I was being economical).

Spy's is very hard. His Sardinia track should be released on CD. I love the accordion in that, an Italian instrumental of Nobody Does It Better.

What do you think of That's What Keeps You Alone?

I picked Trespassers Will Be Eaten because the opening bars work so excellently with Teehee retracting with the bridge, and helps create perhaps the best scene in LALD.

That's What Keeps You Alone is one of the better tracks on GE. A touch of tenderness to it and Bond's mood.

I weighed up Trespassers Will Be Eaten but it's not a bad track so would have been sixth I'd imagine in mine.

Martin-LALD-Oh God so many. The whole score is out of this world.
Trespassers Will Be Eaten-best action cue of the series.
Bus-Bridge Crash and aftermath-best built up action cue of the series and that final payoff when the wrecked bus comes screaming around the corner is priceless. Sweet mother of pearl indeed.
If He Finds it Kill Him-the build of the music is perfectly timed to their march up the hill and Tee Hee's observation along with the helicopter appearance.
JB theme Rendition-Heading uptown.
San Monique

Hamlisch-TSWLM
Bond 77-film version in the PTS
Ride to Atlantis
LOA riff seguing into the cue for the night boat scene and microfilm check.
The Pyramids
Mojaba Club

Conti-FYEO
Goodbye Countess
Submarine
A Drive in the Country
Runaway
Ski...Shoot...Jump
Special mention to the amazing Gunbarrel, the wonderfully over the top theme rendition in the PTS, the rising dark strains of the JB theme at the end of Run Them Down, The Climb and many more.

Kamen-LTK
Waterskiing to the plane and escape from Wavekrest
Snatching Sanchez in the PTS
The big JB theme moments of the tanker chase climax
The amazing gunbarrel
"You earnt it. You Keep it. Old Buddy."
The light music of transitions that fuse the guitar and JB themes-particularly the end of the wedding and Bond sneaking onboard the Wavekrest etc.

Serra-GE
Goldeneye Overture
We Share the Same Passions
A Pleasant Drive in St. Petersburg-may have not worked in the film but it s a great ballsy all over the place track.
Ladies First
Astoundingly creative and fresh gunbarrel. Pretty much any of the dark eurothriller feeling transitions or underscores.

Interesting comment about A Pleasant Drive in St Petersburg... I agree. The Russian-esque vocal work that features in that track I wish popped up more in the film. It's very effective.

The GoldenEye gun barrel is just as effective too. Creative and fresh, as you say. I'd take it over Barry's TMTWGG-MR-OP-AVTAK-TLD gun barrel music any day. It feels too safe. Imagine a Bond theme flavoured with AVTAK's 80s guitar and brassy ballsiness for its gunbarrel sequence. Likewise, TLD demanded something to fit its grittier Soviet-bloc feel.

I'm not big on LTK's gun barrel music. Unpopular opinion I know, but until Bond shoots the bullet, it just feels like a series of accents. But it's a great moment when Kamen gives us the Bond theme as the blood drips.

Wonder if Conti was flattered at Serra 'borrowing' two thirds of one of his track titles?

You know, as a young'n it was a phrase I thought was synonymous with Bond as I started making my way through all things James Bond... and yet it's only really those two tracks that exist that are entitled as such.

Still, just another example of the interrelatedness between FYEO and GE.

Fair enough assumption to make ... running, shooting, jumping and skiing ARE synonymous with the series.

Most composers aren't the ones who title the cues. Whomever assembles the soundtrack albums gets the numbered cues and has to come up with titles which explains the many years of woeful track names.

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wrote:

Interesting comment about A Pleasant Drive in St Petersburg... I agree. The Russian-esque vocal work that features in that track I wish popped up more in the film. It's very effective.

The GoldenEye gun barrel is just as effective too. Creative and fresh, as you say. I'd take it over Barry's TMTWGG-MR-OP-AVTAK-TLD gun barrel music any day. It feels too safe. Imagine a Bond theme flavoured with AVTAK's 80s guitar and brassy ballsiness for its gunbarrel sequence. Likewise, TLD demanded something to fit its grittier Soviet-bloc feel.

I'm not big on LTK's gun barrel music. Unpopular opinion I know, but until Bond shoots the bullet, it just feels like a series of accents. But it's a great moment when Kamen gives us the Bond theme as the blood drips.

LTK used to throw me growing up as being a gunbarrel that like you say didn't so much...until I realized it was just as daring as GE's in many ways. The opening notes are slightly harsh and setup a dangerous suspenseful quality that lets the viewer know right off the bat this one will be different-before settling into a comforting JB theme that is also done in a slightly more forceful way. Then the fadeout into the opening scene has notes of suspense again and a sense of trepidation.

Heh didn't know the composers themselves don't name the tracks. I'd have thought they'd need to reference their compositions somehow so they title them like any songwriter titles their music.

As for LTK's gun barrel music, I think it's very fitting for the film, and it certainly ups the sense of drama and danger in its opening bars, but like the film, I just want something more Bondian.

I heard about the naming of tracks via my old man funnily enough. I remarked how most of Barry's tracks (like in VTAK) have Bond in them ("Bond Smells a Rat", "Bond and Tiffany", etc) and was told Barry didn't do the naming of tracks.

Nowadays I think they do, at least non-Bond scores. Giacchino has those pun track titles on his scores (not Rogue One).

There are some very odd choices for the tracks. Come in 007 Your Time Is Up I've actually never seen the relevance of in the context of the scene/story.

It's probably a very simple reason that has just gone over my head.

It refers to boating lakes in parks and being able to rent numbered boats for a period of time for use on them. When you reached your half-hour or whatever, the boat-rental person would holler 'Come in (insert number), your time is up!'.

Wow that's...I had no idea...I always expected it to be something like a deleted scene with Renard or meant to tie in to the M cell scene with the clock.

I do like Kamen's gun barrel. Right from the beginning you know something is off as it's not the traditional opening bars Barry established, then the gun shot, and then the traditional guitar plays. To me the music is meant to let you in on how this is not going to be your traditional Bond film. When I watched it for the first time that's how I interpreted it. It felt very unique, and that made the prospect of what may come seem even more exciting.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

It refers to boating lakes in parks and being able to rent numbered boats for a period of time for use on them. When you reached your half-hour or whatever, the boat-rental person would holler 'Come in (insert number), your time is up!'.  

Interesting! Might have been worth ending the scene with an irate, disbelieving Q arriving via hot air balloon or something: "Come in 007. Your Time Is Up!"

Makeshift Python wrote:

I do like Kamen's gun barrel. Right from the beginning you know something is off as it's not the traditional opening bars Barry established, then the gun shot, and then the traditional guitar plays. To me the music is meant to let you in on how this is not going to be your traditional Bond film. When I watched it for the first time that's how I interpreted it. It felt very unique, and that made the prospect of what may come seem even more exciting.

Well it definitely foreshadows the two halves of LTK: the first being the more Miami Vice feel and the second something more Bondian.