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Urban Hat€monger ? · 10-02-2014, 10:17 AM

Urban's Chart Rundown of all 24 + 1 Bond Themes

I've always been a fan of Bond films ever since I was allowed to see Moonraker as a very young child when I was really far too young to see it, I have also been a fan of Bond themes no matter what my musical taste happened to be at the time. So I have decided to list my top 25 Bond themes here.
I will be using the themes from 22 of the official 23 Bond movies. I won't be including the James Bond theme itself from Dr. No (and every subsequent Bond movie) simply because it's kind of unratable being the most iconic pieces of music of the 20th century. I will also be including 1967's Casino Royale & 1983's Never Say Never Again and an extra bonus song of which I will explain my reasons for including later, which rounds things up to a nice round number of 25.
So let's begin the countdown.

(Click on the images to be taken to the song)

25. Casino Royale - Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass (1967)
This is from the 1967 version of Casino Royale which is a comedy and it has a theme song to match. I can see why they chose it given the nature of the movie but a jolly uptempo jazzy mariache style theme shouldn't be anywhere near a Bond movie, even if it was written by Burt Bacharach.
That's not to say I hate the song, it just totally sucks as a Bond theme.
Thankfully most people have forgotten it exists, but the even bigger crime of having this as the theme song?
Well, I'll get to that later.
Oh, and the version at the end of the movie with lyrics somehow manages to be even worse.

---

24. Die Another Day - Madonna (2002)
Starts off OK for about 30 seconds then turns into a horrible badly conceived electroclash style mess with Madonna's over autotuned vocals making her sound like a dying Cyberman in agony. While I'm not against Madonna making a Bond song why they chose this awful rubbish I'll never know. I guess they wanted to update the franchise a little, the fact they never went that way again suggests to me it didn't work.

---

23. Tomorrow Never Dies - Sheryl Crow (1997)
Sorry but I fucking hate Sheryl Crow, I will however do my best not to hold any bias or prejudice against her for this song.
There's nothing actually wrong with this song, it's just there's nothing new here, it's basically a collection of stuff people have done before a lot better than Sheryl. There's just nothing memorable about this at all.
But the real crime here is that K.D. Lang's far superior song 'Surrender' was originally intended to be the theme song to this movie but was pulled at the last minute to make way for this crap. I guess they thought Sheryl Crow was a bigger name. Thankfully with the advent of YouTube one Bond fan has taken it upon himself to put the world to rights and show the titles with K.D. Lang's song over them instead of Sheryl's.

---

22. You Know My Name (From Casino Royale) - Chris Cornell (2006)
I never thought I would see anyone from a grunge band doing a Bond theme but here's Chris Cornell doing his. I gotta say I was hugely disappointed hearing this. It's a little more rock n roll than your average Bond theme but I was just expecting something BIGGER, it's like Cornell doesn't have to make any effort at all to sing this. At least test the guys range a little.
But the one thing that makes this song as low as this is in this rundown is that I can't listen to this song without thinking it sounds like the kind of song Bryan Adams should be singing. And if there's one thing that should sound warning bells ringing it's something that makes you think of Bryan Adams songs.

---

21. Another Way To Die (From Quantum Of Solace) - Alicia Keys & Jack White (2008)
This is an OK song but the problem with it is it sounds like it was thrown together at the last minute.I can just imagine them writing it....

'Right we got to get Jack's guitar playing in it, we have to get Alicia's piano playing in it, we have to get them both singing, we need slow bits and fast bits.'
'OK, let's hear what we've got.'
'Not bad but it needs something else'
'I know, lets crowbar in tiny snippets of the John Barry theme into totally random places even though they don't mix at all with the song whatsoever'
'Cool, we'll do that'
And that is exactly what was churned out.

20-16 coming soon.

10-02-2014, 10:17 AM	#317 (permalink)
Urban Hat€monger ? The Sexual Intellectual Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Somewhere cooler than you Posts: 18,626	Urban's Chart Rundown of all 24 + 1 Bond Themes I've always been a fan of Bond films ever since I was allowed to see Moonraker as a very young child when I was really far too young to see it, I have also been a fan of Bond themes no matter what my musical taste happened to be at the time. So I have decided to list my top 25 Bond themes here. I will be using the themes from 22 of the official 23 Bond movies. I won't be including the James Bond theme itself from Dr. No (and every subsequent Bond movie) simply because it's kind of unratable being the most iconic pieces of music of the 20th century. I will also be including 1967's Casino Royale & 1983's Never Say Never Again and an extra bonus song of which I will explain my reasons for including later, which rounds things up to a nice round number of 25. So let's begin the countdown. (Click on the images to be taken to the song) 25. Casino Royale - Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass (1967) This is from the 1967 version of Casino Royale which is a comedy and it has a theme song to match. I can see why they chose it given the nature of the movie but a jolly uptempo jazzy mariache style theme shouldn't be anywhere near a Bond movie, even if it was written by Burt Bacharach. That's not to say I hate the song, it just totally sucks as a Bond theme. Thankfully most people have forgotten it exists, but the even bigger crime of having this as the theme song? Well, I'll get to that later. Oh, and the version at the end of the movie with lyrics somehow manages to be even worse. --- 24. Die Another Day - Madonna (2002) Starts off OK for about 30 seconds then turns into a horrible badly conceived electroclash style mess with Madonna's over autotuned vocals making her sound like a dying Cyberman in agony. While I'm not against Madonna making a Bond song why they chose this awful rubbish I'll never know. I guess they wanted to update the franchise a little, the fact they never went that way again suggests to me it didn't work. --- 23. Tomorrow Never Dies - Sheryl Crow (1997) Sorry but I fucking hate Sheryl Crow, I will however do my best not to hold any bias or prejudice against her for this song. There's nothing actually wrong with this song, it's just there's nothing new here, it's basically a collection of stuff people have done before a lot better than Sheryl. There's just nothing memorable about this at all. But the real crime here is that K.D. Lang's far superior song 'Surrender' was originally intended to be the theme song to this movie but was pulled at the last minute to make way for this crap. I guess they thought Sheryl Crow was a bigger name. Thankfully with the advent of YouTube one Bond fan has taken it upon himself to put the world to rights and show the titles with K.D. Lang's song over them instead of Sheryl's. --- 22. You Know My Name (From Casino Royale) - Chris Cornell (2006) I never thought I would see anyone from a grunge band doing a Bond theme but here's Chris Cornell doing his. I gotta say I was hugely disappointed hearing this. It's a little more rock n roll than your average Bond theme but I was just expecting something BIGGER, it's like Cornell doesn't have to make any effort at all to sing this. At least test the guys range a little. But the one thing that makes this song as low as this is in this rundown is that I can't listen to this song without thinking it sounds like the kind of song Bryan Adams should be singing. And if there's one thing that should sound warning bells ringing it's something that makes you think of Bryan Adams songs. --- 21. Another Way To Die (From Quantum Of Solace) - Alicia Keys & Jack White (2008) This is an OK song but the problem with it is it sounds like it was thrown together at the last minute.I can just imagine them writing it.... 'Right we got to get Jack's guitar playing in it, we have to get Alicia's piano playing in it, we have to get them both singing, we need slow bits and fast bits.' 'OK, let's hear what we've got.' 'Not bad but it needs something else' 'I know, lets crowbar in tiny snippets of the John Barry theme into totally random places even though they don't mix at all with the song whatsoever' 'Cool, we'll do that' And that is exactly what was churned out. 20-16 coming soon. __________________ Urb's RYM Stuff Most people sell their soul to the devil, but the devil sells his soul to Nick Cave.