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OP is the first Bond film I saw in the theater, so I will always have a soft spot for this gunbarrel (and PTS, which has a lot of good cues).
That being said, it is not the most exciting one. TLD did a similar gunbarrel, better.
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Time to reveal yet another gunbarrel. Number 13 is none other than...
A VIEW TO A KILL
We're all over the place here. The highest place achieved by AVTAK was 2nd, and the lowest was 23rd. 4 people ranked it in the ones, 3 people ranked it in the tens and 3 people ranked it in the twenties. It scored 126 points.
I was that 2nd place. AVTAK is without a doubt one of my favorite gunbarrel cues. I love its lean arrangement and fast tempo. The riff played on flutes and clarinets plus trumpets (and sans violins) sounds really cool, and the brassy fanfare at the end of the cue sounds both cool and dangerous. I also love the simple percussion, that triangle roll that, when unaccompanied by tambourine, I find to be evocative of something high tech, of blinking lights or circuitry or something, which suits the subject matter of the film.
How do you feel about this gunbarrel cue and its place in the ranking game?
I ranked Die Another Day in 17th place. It probably should have been a little higher, on reflection. I like that Pierce Brosnan finally gets the trademark B suspended fourth chords at the start of the gun barrel and that the Bond vamp is back on the electric guitar. Both elements have been missing since Licence To Kill, so it’s a nice link to the past. David Arnold was obviously aware of this, given that it was the 40th anniversary of the franchise. The cymbal crashes, shrieking brass and electronic drum pattern are also ace.
I’m not sure why I placed Quantum Of Solace higher at 13. It’s neat hearing what is essentially ‘The Name’s Bond…James Bond’, arranged for the gun barrel sequence. The prominent triangle and tambourine hark back to John Barry. The electric guitar has always bothered me slightly though, in that it’s lost in the mix of the rest of the orchestra. The panning also sounds slightly off to my ears.
The Spy Who Loved Me is a fairly skippable entry at #20 for me. I miss the ‘bullet’ hits which had been customary up until this point. I agree that it sounds like a mistake in the arrangement when the ostinato is interrupted by the Bond vamp to sync with the bullet. The ‘bubbly’ synth at the end probably worked at the time, but it’s dated badly.
I think I ranked Tomorrow Never Dies the lowest out of everyone, at number 23. I don’t have an aversion to it per se and I commend David Arnold for trying something different with the structure (I recall him saying that he wanted to end the gun barrel with a ‘musical question’, as no-one had done that before). However, it’s just a little dull and creates little sense of drama or anticipation of what’s to come in the movie. I do like Arnold’s use of ‘col legno’ though - getting the string players to hit their strings with the wooden side of their bows as a percussive effect.
I placed the Spectre gun barrel in third place - higher above everyone else it seems! I LOVE this arrangement. I’m a big fan of the music under the company logos and Thomas Newman’s unexpected shift to the C major chord and then to A major before the crescendo into the traditional B suspended fourth chords is very exciting. Even though the Bond vamp is missing, you have prominent pizzicato double bass and bongos! It’s like From Russia With Love all over again! I’m sentimental about this arrangement as I remember guessing in the cinema whether the gun barrel would be back at the start of the film or not. I was overjoyed when it was, particularly with this terrific arrangement.
I placed Octopussy in 15th place (behind A View To A Kill, but ahead of Moonraker). As everyone has documented, Barry didn’t hugely change the structure or arrangement of his gun barrel from Octopussy to The Living Daylights, but there are subtle differences. I’m a fan of the strings carrying the vamp in this version and I like the subtlety of the trumpets accentuating every other note. I’m also a sucker for the tambourine/triangle combo Barry loved, as well as the cellos playing the ostinato with the added E at the bottom. This gun barrel plods along with poise, almost like a military procession, which was probably a conscious choice of Barry’s leading into the opening scene on the airbase. It’s probably why it’s so brass-heavy too.
Question for @mattjoes: can we rank all the scores like this next?! ;)
What I don’t get is how it can have a quicker tempo and yet still fit the same onscreen graphic sequence?
Good call on the bongos. There are barely any bongos in the gunbarrel sequences. It's an instrument that could get more use.
Absolutely, it's got a strong military feel, which does tie into the opening scene.
Actually, this game was inspired by @GoldenGun's numerous ranking games, and he already hosted one for the scores, a couple of years ago. It provided an opportunity for some very interesting conversation. Here's a link:
https://www.mi6community.com/discussion/20375/quick-big-mi6-music-score-ranking-game
The music is played faster, but the difference in length is short enough not to be too noticeable. The most clear evidence of a faster tempo in AVTAK is that Bond fires his gun a beat after the riff starts playing, whereas in OP, the gun is fired a beat before the riff starts playing. The other "tell" is that in AVTAK, the Bond theme is practically over when the white circle reaches the lower right corner of the screen, whereas in OP, the cue reaches the same musical point only when the circle is expanding to present the first shot of the film.
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Anybody got some further thoughts on AVTAK, before moving on to another reveal?
There is a sameness to OP-AVTAK-TLD. I mean, they're all classic and better than others that we have yet to see on this list (coughEricSerra/cough).
Because the music's so close, I tend to rank the music on these three gunbarrels the way I rank the films themselves. TLD > OP > AVTAK
MOONRAKER
Ranked between 1st and 18th place by our voters, Moonraker received 2 votes in the ones and 8 votes in the tens. It scored 132 points.
I ranked it in first place. I remember the first time I watched the film and heard this cue, I was surprised by how weird it sounded, especially the gunshot chords. It wasn't that I liked it or disliked it, I just couldn't quite process it. Some comments I have found on YouTube express confusion and annoyance over this arrangement:
(sources: 1, 2)
Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I wasn't bothered by the arrangement, and over the years I've come to really love it. It sounds dramatic, exciting and, yes, very quirky—even while sharing an orchestral style with gunbarrels like OP, AVTAK and TLD, this one is unlikely to be mistaken for those.
The gunshot chords in the intro have a very jarring quality: they sound, for lack of a better word, ugly, and they're matched in 'ugliness' by those gunshot responses (the low notes in response to the chords), which are usually arranged to have a slightly brassier sound, but here are more prominent in their use of woodwinds. The bass drum also gives these low notes a strangely savage touch. But once again, these qualities don't bother me; in fact, I really enjoy them. It's like metal music in orchestral form.
Later on, when playing parts of the riff together, the horns and trumpets achieve a rather cold and metallic sound that I also love. The use of orchestral instruments for the riff (not exclusive to MR, of course) is also welcome, because there are specific notes that are played staccato (short and precise), a great little touch that doesn't come across in the same way when the riff is played on guitar. I also love hearing the Bond theme played on violins.
The subtle touch of having the tambourine emphasize the off-beat gives the whole cue a refreshing energy and sense of drive that other gunbarrels don't have. This isn't a slow, march-like version of the Bond theme as in the OP and TLD gunbarrels—this is action music. It's even got more of a driving feel than the Connery gunbarrels.
I appreciate this gunbarrel music even more seeing that some of the latest gunbarrel cues have had a more generic sound, and we're unlikely to get anything like this in the near future, especially after the GoldenEye score, whose negative reception had consequences that last to this day. The cue sounds like Barry, who had arranged the Bond theme for eight films in the past, saying "let's go nuts." I don't know if he felt that way about it, but the music sure sounds that way to me, even if its arrangement shares certain basic elements with other gunbarrel cues, so it's not quite as out there as something like GoldenEye.
How do you feel about this gunbarrel and its place in the ranking game?
It is a truly unique sounding gunbarrel that is instantly recognizable.
The opening riff, in particular, sounds very ‘clean’ - like it was recorded in your own living room.
Every other gunbarrel opening has this distant, echoey effect, but this one sounds almost ‘unplugged’
I like it a lot.
Such a shame this one wasn’t included in the MR soundtrack as it’s a truly great variation (same with FRWL).
I ranked Moonraker in #16th place. What strikes me about this gun barrel is how sparse the instrumentation is. To my ears, there are only brass instruments playing the suspended fourths, no woodwind, nor strings. There’s a bass drum on the third chord, but by Barry standards this is pretty minimal. I spat out my tea reading some of the YouTube comments, particularly the one about the ‘orchestra…cleaning out their instruments’ :D. There’s a definite attack to the opening notes of the brass and also a bite to the violins as they play the vamp, quite staccato. I’m a fan of the tambourine and triangle combo, which creates a ‘giddy up’ feel in the rhythm section (imagine trotting along on a horse to it and you’ll know what I mean haha). There’s a discernible lack of woodwind overall; if you listen closely you can hear clarinets playing the chromatic ostinato with the cellos, but that’s about it. That’s why I rank Octopussy, AVTAK and TLD higher, because of their fuller instrumentation. Also as we’ve discussed quite a bit before, the recording quality of the Moonraker score is substandard compared to other Bond films, which doesn’t help matters.
Interesting how the same instrument can be evoke different concepts or feelings in each person. The triangle does enhance the sense of urgency of the cue.
You might have an edited film rip of the gunbarrel which has circled around the net (which I also have), in which the triangle does appear to stop mid-vamp. I suspect the person who edited the audio couldn't help this when mixing and combining different elements, taken from different audio stems, to try to avoid sound effects. In the film, the triangle plays the full vamp, and only stops when the sustained E minor chord starts (that is, at the very end of the cue, barely audible in the film because of the helicopter).
I agree, I like this very much.
It's harder to notice in a stereo mix, but listening to a surround mix, one can tell are more woodwinds, in fact, not any less than in the latter Barry gunbarrels.
If (when) the score is re-released, it will be very interesting to hear how the gunbarrel music sounds.
DR. NO
Ranked between 1st and 25th place, Dr. No received 4 votes in the ones, 4 votes in the tens and 2 votes in the twenties (both of which were for the 25th place). This gunbarrel scored 137 points.
I ranked it in 25th place. The opening electronic music (which I hope to hear in its entirety one day) is certainly interesting, as is the explosive use of the Bond theme after the gunshot, but for me, this gunbarrel can't compete with the other ones, which generate more sustained excitement. Having said that, I still appreciate this one in its own way, as it creates its own unique sense of quiet anticipation for the gunshot. I ranked this gunbarrel behind Casino Royale '06, but in hindsight, I should have reversed them, as the use of the Bond theme, albeit partial, gives it an advantage.
How do you feel about the Dr. No gunbarrel?
Beep-Beep-Beep-Big Ben-Boom-Bond Theme.
So 60s and yet so modern. Can’t get enough of it.
Now that you mention it, it's especially interesting to hear that electronic music today, considering it was cutting edge stuff back in the day. And it has aged well.
Trivia time. Do you know where the beeps appear in another Bond film?
As a side note, my favorite gunbarrel will always be the Bob Simmons version; it’s perfection imo.
It's not DAF, though you're not a million miles away. It is a "more recent" Bond film.
You hear them on the track 'Kiss Of Life' from the Die Another Day soundtrack. I always thought that was a nice little tip of the hat to the 40th anniversary of the franchise by David Arnold :)